Arla Foods Ingredients: keeping people and production on track through an acquisition
- Client
- Arla Foods Ingredients
- Sector
- Food ingredients
- Offer
- Mergers, acquisitions and integration
- Year
- 2024
- Where
- United Kingdom and Denmark
The challenge
When Arla Foods Ingredients acquired a factory in the UK from Volac, the business case depended on the people. Production capacity, key employees and employee satisfaction all had to stay at the highest possible level through the integration, and nothing in the factory's organisation would change for the first six months. The new colleagues needed to understand the why, feel welcome and trust their new owner from day one.
What we did
Napica worked alongside Arla Foods Ingredients' internal integration team through four phases, from preparation to launch and retention, following the change flow model.
- Core narrative: one story for the acquisition, with answers to the objections and competing stories people would hear.
- Stakeholder and barrier mapping: who needed to hear what, from whom and when.
- Integration team onboarding: a two-day seminar for the post-merger integration team.
- Leader training: a training day plus individual sessions for each senior manager.
- Launch: first communication two weeks before the takeover, town halls on launch day, a buddy scheme and success stories afterwards.
The result
The launch unfroze the old organisation and built trust, empowered key personnel, communicated the vision and the process, and moved the factory into Arla Foods Ingredients. The next phase focuses on turning new routines into habits.
Mergers, acquisitions and integration
The offer behind this case.
Explore Mergers, acquisitions and integration →Napica ApS is the parent company of Rhetorica, communication and rhetorical training.