After a 2025 marked by record sales and historically high quotation for cattle owners, the food producer has experienced price pressure in the first half of the 2025/26 financial year in a market where competition for cattle is intense.
Declining demand for beef at the start of 2026, driven by high consumer prices, has put pressure on earnings at Danish Crown Beef, which nevertheless reports operating profit (EBIT) of DKK 63 million for the first half of the financial year, in line with expectations.
“The hot beef market we saw in the first part of 2025 has cooled down, and we are seeing demand challenged by cheaper protein alternatives such as chicken and pork. Earnings are therefore under pressure, which only underlines the importance of our processing strategy, where we increase the value of the meat through product development and processing,” says Finn Klostermann, CEO of Danish Crown Beef.
A successful processing strategy and increased value from slaughtered cattle are among the factors that have secured higher revenue despite a decline in the number of cattle in both Denmark and Germany.
Danish Crown Beef therefore reports revenue of DKK 3,744 million for the first half, compared with DKK 3,226 million in the same period last year. At the same time, the profit margin fell from 4.4 percent to 1.7 percent, partly due to higher processing costs and partly due to an increased quotation for Danish Crown’s cattle owners, which at the end of the half-year was 27 percent higher than at the same time last year.
On the cattle side, Danish Crown has widened the gap to Germany and the Netherlands and improved its competitiveness by DKK 1.97/kg — corresponding to a total of DKK 64 million for the first half.
“It is positive that we can continue to pay a satisfactory quotation to our cattle owners and have significantly improved our competitiveness over the past year. But at the same time, we are in a situation where the raw material base is shrinking year by year, and where Danish Crown is fighting to maintain market shares in a contracting market. That is why we see potential in securing a share of the 100,000 live cattle that leave the country every year instead of being slaughtered and creating value in Denmark,” says Finn Klostermann.
The competition for slaughter cattle in both Denmark and Germany is currently a major challenge. Market players are highly willing to pay high prices to keep their lines full at the abattoirs, while sales prices — particularly for the cheaper cuts — are falling.
Danish Crown Beef’s slaughterings have fallen by 4.6 percent in Denmark and 11.5 percent in Germany compared with the first half of 2024/25. However, cattle weights have been higher, so the decline in kilo-gram volume has been smaller.
The lower number of cattle slaughterings has also affected the hide company Scan-Hide, as fewer raw materials lead to poorer capacity utilisation. At the same time, demand for genuine leather for cars and furniture is in sharp decline.
Finn Klostermann therefore emphasises that increasing the value of the slaughtered kilos is crucial for future growth.
“When raw material prices are high, getting more out of every single kilo is a must. That is why processed products such as BOOST and mixed minced with vegetables have been important successes, just as the supply of beef patties to McDonald’s will become an important engine for the business when we start production in the second half of 2026,” he says.
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