AarhusKarlshamn UK
Monday, 4 January 2010
“The port of Hull is one of the UK’s leading foreign-trading ports and fundamentally we chose to invest in Hull because of this.”
Ian McIntosh, president West Division AAK.
In 2006, the Danish owned vegetable oil business Aarhus United merged with Swedish competitor Karlshamn, to create AarhusKarlshamn (AAK), the world’s leading manufacturer of high value-added specialty vegetable fats.
AAK now operates the country’s largest edible oil refinery in Hull, which, as part of the busiest ports complex in the UK, is able to handle the huge quanitities of raw materials required by the company.
The merger cemented AAK’s roots in the city, which can be traced back to Hull’s 19th century seed crushing industry, and saw further expansion of production facilities at the port. It also became the headquarters of the company’s West division, a role involving the leadership of five operating companies in the UK, USA and Latin America which employ 875 staff and turn over more than one billion US dollars each year.
At the 12-acre site in Hull, where 360 are employed, oil is turned into more than 300 different products for the food manufacturing, bakery and catering markets. It deals with 400,000 tonnes of oil every year, much of it from palm oil imported from Indonesia and Malaysia.
AAK supplies just about every food business in the country either directly or indirectly and to a diverse range of customers worldwide, with about 20 per cent of its Hull production exported. Being centrally located in the UK is a major advantage to AAK along with the availability of a skilled workforce.
The key ingredient produced in Hull is vegetable oil – if production stopped, the UK food industry would grind to a halt.
Every Burger King restaurant in Europe uses frying oil from Hull and Pizza Hut’s new Drizzler oils are from AAK, which also supplies products under the labels of leading supermarkets such as Tesco and Morrisons.
Customer demand has led to significant investment being planned in new technology, which will be applied in Hull, to take trans fats out of certain formulas and reduce levels of saturated fats.
In maintaining its leading position, AAK is always ready to meet a fresh challenge.