Danish company Novonesis, a recent merger of Novozymes and Chr. Hansen, is withdrawing entirely from Russia.

”Under the current war conditions, Novonesis will cease its business activities in Russia and expects to conclude them within 12 months. We are committed to supporting our employees throughout this process,” Novonesis says in an email to MarketWire.

Novozymes, which is one half of the merged company, had previously withdrawn completely from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. Back in 2022, the chairman of Novozymes, Jørgen Buhl Rasmussen, said that Novozymes ”will neither sell in nor deliver to Russia and Belarus.”

But as the other half of the merger - Chr. Hansen - continued to have activities in the country, these have been included in the new, combined company. The merged group has mainly supplied solutions for the production of milk, yogurt and cheese to the Russian market.

Novonesis has not previously disclosed the size of its sales in Russia, but according to a report from the Kyiv School of Economics, the figure is in the DKK three-digit millions, according to business media Finans.

English edit by Kristoffer Grønbæk