Page 23 - Food&Drink magazine July 2021

As we went to press, HelloFresh announced plans to acquire 100 per cent of Youfoodz for $125 million in its bid to become a leading global D2C food business. The initial offer proposes $0.93 cents per share.
Forming and Portioning with a difference
The Formatic range of machines will form and portion products including meats, chicken, fish, cheese and cookie doughs into a variety of shapes. If you are looking for a forming machine which is easy to operate and clean, involves minimal pressure and mixing of your product, and has low maintenance, then look no further – efficient and consistent food portioning.
• Easy adjustment of form thickness for product weight control.
• Models and drums to produce from 1200 to 24,000 forms per hour.
• Auto paper interleaving available to place paper under each form such as beef burgers.
• Auto-wire cleaning available to
ensure smooth clean cut of form
from the drum under high speed operation. •
Benchtop models
to suit small and cottage industry all the way through to medium & large scale production plants. Low entry-level pricing.
Foot pedal operation option.
A.Q.I.S. approved.
Auto stacking / auto-traying / auto-indexing – all available.
Matching 200mm batter, crumb and fry lines also available.
• Custom manufactured form drums to your design requirements – schnitzel, star, wedge, chevap, round, square, rectangle – almost anything.
• World standard safety features.
• •
•
www.symetec.com
Phone: (61 2) 9939 4900 Email: ssyme@symetec.com C22/148 Old Pittwater Road, Brookvale NSW, Australia
completion in Q1FY23, which will bring all three manufacturing facilities and two offices under one roof and increase its capacity to around 1.1 million meals per week.
The company uses an omnichannel sales model for more than 850,000 home delivery customers via D2C and business-to-business (B2B) offerings. Its B2B market includes major and independent supermarkets, petrol and convenience stores, corporate and government customers.
The company says supporting local growers is core to its business and is delivered daily to its Brisbane headquarters. Meals are prepared and then sealed through a combined process of vacuum sealing and Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP). MAP is when the air inside the package is substituted with a safe and protective gas made up of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. It keeps oxygen to a minimum,
which helps keep meals fresh for as long as possible.
Youfoodz says its meals have a shelf life of up to 18 days from the day they’re made. They can also be frozen for up to three months if they are in the freezer before their use-by date.
In the company’s Q3FY21 guidance update, it said it expects net revenue for FY21 to be in the range of $146.0-148.9 million and EBITDA in the range of $1.0-2.0 million. This is down from the $2.9 million it forecast, with the company saying the lower figure reflected the underperformance in B2B due to the ongoing impact of COVID-19 in the retail channel and its own strategic focus on B2C growth.
Its net revenue for Q3 was $35.3 million, up 18.2 per cent vs pcp, but B2B gross revenues were down 3.8 per cent relative to pcp to $15.6 million, reflecting ongoing COVID-19 restrictions on wholesale customers in certain channels
FAR LEFT & LEFT: Soups have made the D2C menu this winter for the first time.
(in particular petrol and convenience, gyms and corporate). A mid-sized B2B customer also paused stocking Youfoodz to trial non-branded ready meals. It has resigned from Q1FY22, the company says.
Youfoodz CEO Lance Giles says its impressive B2C performance drove its top-line growth. “Our B2B business, which has experienced challenging trading conditions recently, is an important
component of Youfoodz’ omnichannel model.” Initiatives implemented in Q3 would see B2B well positioned to return to growthinFY22,Gilessays. ✷
✷ STOP THE PRESS
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | July 2021 | Food&Drink business | 23 13/7/21 12:54 pm
READY MEALS