Jutland pigmeat group Tican's new sales office in Chippenham, Wiltshire, will secure the firm's supply lines into the UK under former DBC commercial director Bob Hitchin. EU conditions attached to its approval of the Danish Crown/Vestjyske merger secured "unchanged selling arrangements" for the coming months. These run until October. In return, Tican and Steff Houlberg relinquished their holding in ESS-Food, which has effectively been folded into Danish Crown. DBC was originally set up as a subsidiary of ESS-Food, in which all three Danish producer co-ops had a share. Tican is supplying bacon cuts to wholesalers and manufacturers, in the same way as ESS-Food used to and DBC still does. But with the disappearance of ESS-Food, there is one fewer credit line open to customers. For Ove Thejls, Tican's managing director in Denmark, the immediate aim for Tican is to establish a separate business identity. "So far all our bacon cuts have been sold through DBC, but we want to spread our sales and establish ourselves with other customers in the UK," he said. The retail bacon trade will continue to be served by Direct Table, with Tican UK taking a fresh look at potential outlets. "In the long run we might be competing with DBC, but in the short term it is our aim to co-operate because of our commercial agreement." The volumes going into the Australian market have been especially welcome for Tican in the slack weeks between Christmas and the New Year. "We will want to develop other products for the UK because it is an important market for us" said Tican md Ove Thejls. "We will want to do more processing: we have no intention of raising the number of slaughterings." {{PROVISIONS }}