The largest cattle breeding company in Europe, Arcowin, has been established with more than 53,000 members.

The result of a merge between Evolution, Masterrind and Vikinggenetics, owned by Faba, Växa and VikingDanmark) this new co-operative aims to ensure the most sustainable and highest possible genetic progress of different breeds, for the greatest benefit of the members and worldwide customers within the dairy and beef industry.

Arcowin was initially formed to support dairy and beef breeding programmes from Evolution, Masterrind and Vikinggenetics, with the main objective to take advantage of their respective genetic resources and start some R and D collaborations.

At the end of 2020, the three companies agreed to investigate further synergies of collaboration. Based on the analysis of the synergies, the board of directors of the co-operatives announced their intention to merge activities related to R and D, breeding, production and international sales and international marketing.

The merger is conditioned on receipt of regulatory approvals and is expected to take effect on January 1, 2022.

"We realised that the three companies will gain further synergies and have the same foundation being a co-operative, owned by the farmers and working for the farmers. Being united we will stand together with 53,000 dairy and beef farmers relying on us to secure them the best genetic progress for the success of their farms," said Vincent Rétif, chairperson of the board of Arcowin.

Evolution, Masterrind and Vikinggenetics are leading co-operatives within cattle breeding with strong bases in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, and Sweden. The member driven companies, Evolution, Faba, Masterrind, Växa and Vikingdanmark will continue servicing the members within the five home market countries.

Dr Josef Pott, CEO at Arcowin added: "As Arcowin gives full exchange of genetic information across all breeds and countries, we are able to identify the best animals in Europe, by taking advantage of the huge variation in our breeds, and thereby maximising the genetic gain in all the breeding programmes. This opens a great potential for the farmers, to get access to superior genetics and benefit of a trend-setting development in Europe."