Arla to close Gefleortens dairy

The Gefleortens Dairy AB dairy cooperative in Sweden was merged into the Arla Foods dairy cooperative in 2017. The dairy has around 45 permanent employees.

Management at the factory introduced an efficiency program where both the number of products and the number of employees were reduced, however, the Arla board said it has failed to turn around the financial challenges that Gefleortens Dairy has faced for a long time.

Arla said as the volume of Gefleortens dairy is small, investing in new equipment for the plant would not be worthwhile.

Patrik Hansson, Arla's Sweden manager, said the challenges for the Gefleortens facility have been tough for a long time but he was pleased that Arla will continue to take all of the milk from the farms it supplies.

When the farmer cooperatives Gefleortens and Arla merged​, the goal was to ensure long-term security for the owners, the dairy farmers, in both cooperatives and to secure the provision for the milk from Gefleortens’ members. The farmers around Gefleortens needed this security to be able to continue their farms.

The Gefleortens brand will continue, however production will be moved to another dairy.