Danish-Swedish dairy foods group Arla Foods has acquired a 50% stake in Cocio Chocolademaelk, the Danish producer of drinking chocolate.
The company is currently owned by local businessmen who purchased it from Borden of the US in the mid-90s. Management personnel or strategy is not expected to change after the acquisition by Arla, the company said.
Cocio Chokolademaelk recently set up production at a new plant in the Danish town of Esbjerg According to Borsen, Arla is likely to utilise some of the capacity at Cocio’s new plant to meet its own production requirements.
Arla also announced it will build a large dairy in the UK to expand its production and distribution capacity for the British market. The new facility will cost some DKr480m (US$56.1m) to build, representing a significant investment for the group.
Arla already processes some 900m litres of milk in the UK every year, thus accounting for 18% of the five billion litres of milk processed in the country.

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