Leche Celta, a subsidiary of Lactogal, will join forces with the Galician group Clun, creating the dairy group called CoRural with the aim of giving “a future to the largest milk producing area in Spain”.
According to a statement from Lactogal, this sum of resources – the cooperative base of CLUN to the industrial and commercial capacity of Leche Celta – will result in an operator with 1,400 milk producers, 800 workers and eight industrial units for an annual turnover of 600 million euros.
“With brands such as Celta, Feiraco, Clesa, Únicla and La Vaquera, the new company will ensure a stable supply of an essential food such as milk, increase collection and processing capacity, diversify products and expand the industrial response to consumer and distribution demands”, the document reads.
The operation, which is still subject to approval by the Competition Authority, represents “another step in the evolution of two complementary trajectories: on the one hand, that of a solid cooperative rooted in rural areas, and on the other, that of an industrial company that, in recent years, has made investments at the service of the sector and its modernization”.
“It is our objective to improve the competitiveness and profitability of production units, strengthen and make the value chain more efficient, and contribute to the economic and social development of the milk sector, an essential food in the Iberian diet that is important to defend”, stated the president of the Board of Directors of Lactogal, José Marques.
José Ángel Blanco, president of Clun, will assume the presidency, and Javier Bretón, current general director of Leche Celta, and Juan Gallástegui, current general director of CLUN, will assume the role of executive administrators of the new entity, whose headquarters would be in Santiago de Compostela.
“CoRural responds to the sector’s historic request to create a large dairy group in Galicia, and always based on a strong cooperative, as is the case in large European dairy groups. This is the great opportunity that the Galician countryside has been waiting for: to have a modern, strong and reference industry”, the general director of Clun, Juan Gallástegui.