Arla Foods

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Arla Foods, based in Århus Denmark, is the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia. It is the result of a merger between Swedish Arla and Danish MD Foods. Arla Foods is owned by approx. 10,600 milk producers in Denmark and Sweden. The name Arla derives from the same word as the English "Early" and means in older Swedish "Early morning". Arla was the name of a local Swedish dairy industry in the end of the 19th century which was one of the founders of modern Arla Foods.

Arla and DONG Energy are co-headsponsors for the Danish national football team .

1 Subsidiaries
2 Middle East boycott over Muhammad cartoons
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Subsidiaries

Denmark, Sweden and the UK are considered home markets because the Group has production in all three countries. Turnover in the three markets accounts for approx. 73% of Arla Foods’ turnover. Arla owns 51% of the stock exchange-listed UK company Arla Foods UK. The purchase of Wisconsin-based White Clover Dairy, a company of 170 employees, on January 26, 2006, opened the US market to direct access (White Clover had sold Arla products under license since 1998). ^[1] Besides Denmark, Sweden and the UK, Arla Foods operates subsidiaries in the 19 most important export markets.

[edit] Middle East boycott over Muhammad cartoons

Main article: Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons

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Saudis boycott Danish dairy produce

Arla's sales were severely affected by a boycott of Danish products across the Middle East in 2006. Transnational anger among Muslims over satirical cartoons of Muhammed was the immediate cause of this. After the Danish government refused to condemn the cartoons or meet with eleven concerned ambassadors from Muslim nations, a boycott was organized, starting in Saudi Arabia and spreading across the Middle-East. The Middle-East is Arla's largest market outside of Europe.

On 2006-02-03, the company said that sales in the Middle East had stopped completely, costing the company two million US$ a day^[2]. Soon after the boycott began to affect Arla's sales, the Danish government met with Muslim ambassadors and the newspaper and the government issued apologetic statements. Unfortunately, by this stage, the issue had gone out of control.

In April 2006, the company said that its products are being placed back into stores in the Middle East. Before the boycott, it supplied 50,000 stores in the area. It has announced that many of its largest clients in Saudi Arabia will start selling its butter and cheese on April 8. Arla has started sponsoring humanitarian causes in the Middle East in order to win back trust from consumers. ^[3]