Under the new company set-up, the slaughterhouses and meat-cutting plants in Emstek and Zeven in the German federal state of Lower Saxony and in Perleberg in the federal state of Brandenburg will occupy a central position.

The Executive Board and the Management Team said the move will improve VION Food's overall efficiency through this concentration.

The smaller sites used by the Business Unit Pork will be divested.

As a consequence of this restructuring operation, VION Food intends to close its branches in Kasel-Golzig (VION Lausitz GmbH) and Minden (Atlas-Handelsgesellschaft mbH). These two slaughterhouses each process 5,000 pigs a week.

In future, the Minden suppliers will deliver to VION's Emstek and Zeven sites, while Perleberg and Altenburg will serve the producers who used to deliver to VION Lausitz.

VION Food said it has decided to implement this restructuring operation in order to further secure the company's strong roots within the regional agricultural sector.

The company said that nothing will change for customers from the meat-processing industry and food retail.

As part of the rationalisation process of the 39 German sites, which was started in April 2013, VION Food has decided that frozen convenience production at the Wunstorf site is no longer part of the core business.

This part of the company will shortly be put up for sale.

VION Food's intention to close the plants in Kasel-Golzig and Minden may affect a maximum of 113 of its own employees and some 85 people hired through external service providers.

The company said that the first thing to do now is to plan meetings with the Works Councils in order to discuss compensation and redundancy schemes. Termination of the contracts with external service providers has been scheduled.