Since Danish Crown launched its nine-point DC Future plan in May this year, the company has focused on cutting costs in the group.

The overall target is a reduction in costs of DKK 1.3 billion over a 6 to 18-month period. On top of this comes the removal of political burdens amounting to DKK 300 million.

"As regards the first seven points of the plan, we are either on target or ahead of target, and this shows quite clearly how seriously we are tackling this. The last two items require collaboration with both employees and politicians, and we are seeing a lot of good will and constructive dialogue with these parties," said CEO Kjeld Johannesen.

"We are working with a time-frame of 6-18 months because it sometimes takes a while before decisions fully impact the bottom line. For example, it is only now that we are beginning to see the effects of the many redundancies among our salaried employees earlier in the year; also the closure of facilities and new partnership agreements take time to translate into financial gains. But what we can safely say is that we are on track," Mr Johannesen said.

In the coming year, DC Future will continue to direct the decisions made by the group.