Lactalis buys Campina and is on route to become the top dairy company

French cheese producer Lactalis has just taken over its third plant in Poland and plans further acquisitions in order to become the leader on the national market. Piotr Walczak, president at Lactalis Polska, confirmed that the company bought a dairy plant in Winnica, which till December 2004 was part of the Campina group, the largest Dutch dairy producer. He declined to reveal the value of the transaction. Lactalis will officially take over the plant in February 2006. The remaining two and a half months will be used to gradually replace the Campina brand with President, a brand owned by the Lactalis concern. The acquisition is part of the company's wider expansion plan on the Polish market. According to Walczak, Lactalis wants this country to become the company's production center providing cheese to eight EU members in Central Europe. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 6, 7) A.F.