Them Co-operative Dairy emphasizes quality and local roots. The town of Them is situated with its 2,300 inhabi-tants in one of Denmark’s most scenic areas with some of the country’s cleanest lakes and vast moor – lands. Them Co-operative Dairy is located in Them and was established in 1888. Today, Torben Aarris is CEO of the dairy, and he knows that the scenic location is unique, and it means something not only to him, but also to the dairy and the share-holders: “Them is a town and an area that is situ-ated in an incredibly idyllic location. The beautiful countryside around us and the landscape are a great influence on our surroundings and origins”.
Many of the 100 employees live in the local area, and the 13 shareholders are all within a 25-kilometre radius of the dairy, and two of the slightly larger farms are within two to three kilometers of the dairy. Many of the farms have been passed down from generation to generation. Some have even been associated with the dairy since it was founded in 1888. So it’s a very locally based dairy.
The Dairy is very important to the area: “Of course, our role is probably first and foremost to be a local workplace for many people. Either in the form of the 100 or so employees we have on a monthly basis, but also indirectly because we make a lot of use of local suppliers, which could be local craftsmen, carpenters and so on,” says Torben Aarris.
Feels a responsibility for local development
The local roots are something that means a lot to the dairy and the shareholders. That’s why they also support several social activities in the town, such as sponsorship of the local swimming pool and the local sports club Them GF, but they also support the town’s museum. “It’s a responsibility that’s very close to the hearts of our owners, the co-owners, that we naturally support the local community. We feel that this is our hinterland, and we want to make it work,” says Torben Aarris.
The dairy also has a shop in the town that sells the dairy’s specialties, and it is therefore a place where many locals go and come quite often. Torben Aarris believes that this can help to create some life in the town: “It is, among other things, a social point that we create with the shop, and it gives some life and some shopping opportunities, where you often see that many of these smaller villages are closing more and more shops, because they have difficulty coping with the competition from the Internet or from shops in the larger towns.”
Them Co-operative Dairy is also a brand that is quite well known in the retail and specialist cheese trade around Denmark, and therefore Torben Aarris also feels that Them Co-operative Dairy is a representative of the local area out in the country.
Down to earth replacements and climate plans
Some of the dairy’s investments not only benefit local urban life and production. They are also improving the sustainability of the Dairy. This includes an investment in a plant that concentrates the dairy’s whey. “It has meant that where we used to have eight big trucks coming in a day to collect whey, we now have a maximum of two and we make the same amount. There is considerably less heavy traffic around the dairy. So, it’s just a good example of how good neighborliness and sustainability go hand in hand. Because we also avoid a lot of trans-port, and the water we filter with such a plant, we reuse in our production for washing and other things instead of it just being lost,” says Torben Aarris.
He points out, however, that the dairy does not only work with ground-level replacements of production facilities. They are also working on an overall climate action plan across the dairy and all the farms, to bring together their sustainability and climate efforts in the longer term.
While Torben Aarris is sure that the dairy and its shareholders would also focus on climate and sustainability if they were located somewhere else in the world, he also acknowledges that the location in the scenic surroundings also has an effect on the work: “It makes it maybe just a little bit easier as a farmer and as a dairy to understand the reason why you work hard on some things that we know can sometimes be a little bit difficult to crack”.
