Transforming Dairy Internally and Externally

As the world’s fifth largest dairy company and the single largest supplier of organic dairy products globally, Arla is truly creating the future of dairy for all of us, leading the agenda for a healthy, natural and responsible dairy industry.

Tracing back to the 1880s when dairy farmers in Denmark and Sweden joined forces in small local cooperatives, Arla has transformed and evolved into a massive, global company with well-known brands, such as Lurpak and Castello, and 19,000 employees—still as a cooperative.

Being one company across borders and cultures and adapting to local markets while staying within the brand guidelines is never an easy task. With a multitude of fragmented country sites run by local marketing units, the Arla brand was jeopardized and Arla was spending unnecessary time and funds on maintenance and new campaign sites every year.

The solution: A global marketing platform with central control of the brand and decentralized flexibility.

Valtech developed an efficient and flexible global platform with a baseline/master site and a big repository of components maintained in one place, available for countries to include or exclude on their local sites.

By having total control over the components available to the local sites, Arla is not only in control of its brand, but is also able to launch new sites cheaper and in just three days—all while maintaining its brand identity.

Since 2009, Valtech and Arla have continuously worked to add value to all parts of the business through smarter, digital, internal communication. This strengthens loyalty and a sense of belonging among Arla’s thousands of employees across nations and sectors and also functions as a tool for better efficiency for their farmers.

Just as Arla is heavily dependent on the dairy farmers in the co-op, every single farmer in the co-op is heavily dependent on specific and personal data insights on the quantity and quality of their deliveries. To assist farmers, we created a "Dairy producer intelligence dashboard" that enables them to navigate through more than 20 different quality reports providing insights into all aspects of their dairy production. It’s personalized, it’s available as an app and it provides reports that allow the producers to compare, analyze and see connections and tendencies over time using a wide range of quality parameters. In short, crucial dairy data made simple.

Being a first mover and a step ahead of the industry is key to Arla. As they identified an increased need for convenience by their consumers, they were determined to go even more digital in their interactions with the end consumer.

Together, we took numerous steps on this journey. Creating a recipe universe was the stepping-stone. We started as a place for inspiration, but eventually integrated the site with selected online grocers’ systems, thus enabling the audience to buy the recipe on the spot and have it delivered to their front door by the online grocers. This developed even further to providing complete family meal plans, ensuring healthy and nutritious food for the entire family for a week—also at the click of a button, naturally.

The latest and biggest step we’ve taken is Arla’s venture into e-commerce and direct to consumer sales. If you’re a resident in the UK, you can now benefit from this transformation and engage with the universe we have created with Arla Baby & Me Organic—not only selling healthy and organic nutrition, but providing a universe of advice and inspiration for every step of the way, from pregnancy to toddler.

This is a brand new transformational venture, about which we will share many more insights in the time to come.