One of the Danish bacon industry's best known and respected figures, Tulip International managing director Peter Rasztar, is leaving to join Sweden's largest slaughterhouse group, Swedish Quality Meat. Rasztar will take up his new post at the £400m turnover SQM by May 1 next year, once a successor at Tulip has been found. An industry source in Copenhagen told The Grocer: "Peter will be a tremendous loss to the Danish industry, but a massive gain for Sweden." Rasztar has been a board member of SQM for four years and is making a long-term commitment to restructure the business, which represents two thirds of the Swedish industry, killing two and a half million pigs a year. There has been speculation about an Arla-MD style merger between Danish Crown and SQM, but it is thought any such move now would be premature. Rasztar has served the Danish pig industry at senior levels for many years. From 1991-93 he was joint md of Tulip in Denmark with Fleming Lindelov. He then joined bacon group SYD as managing director, engineering the merger with Danish Crown in 1995. This industry landmark gave DC 50% of the Danish kill. After two years as md of Danexport, he returned to what by then had become Tulip International, to run Thetford in 1997 as managing director. {{NEWS }}

Topics