Page 59 - Food&Drink Magazine November-December 2021

business, fostering its innovative, agile and consumer centric approach, and will provide resources to accelerate Gourmet Food’s growth. Included in the transaction is Gourmet Food’s prepackaged seafood business including the Ocean Blue brand.
FREEDOM FOODS HEADS
TO US ARBITRATION
The Federal Court of Australia rejected legal proceedings brought by Freedom Foods Group against Blue Diamond Growers and ruled the remaining proceedings must head to arbitration in the US.
Blue Diamond Growers lodged
two claims in the US District Court and the Eastern
District of California in September 2020. It alleged
FFG was undermining Blue Diamond’s market share in
Australia for its own financial gain by using Blue Diamond’s
almond base for its own competing products. It is seeking
roughly $26 million.
The companies entered a
licence agreement in 2011 in which FFG would exclusively manufacture Blue Diamond almond beverages in Australia and New Zealand. It was amended in 2014, giving FFG permission to manufacture private label brands but using the Blue Diamond almond base. Blue Diamond would provide rebates, which are now at the centre of the court action.
Federal Court Justice Mark Moshinsky rejected that claim and ruled proceedings be stayed on the condition Blue Diamond provides certain undertakings, including all sets of proceedings be heard in Californian Arbitration.
Blue Diamond alleged Freedom’s manufacture of other brands including MilkLab and Australia’s
Own – which are not organic or private label – was in breach of their agreement.
The court documents state: “By the time Blue Diamond became aware of Freedom’s fraud and breaches of the licence contracts,
Freedom had already established its MilkLab brand and products in the marketplace, the market share for Blue Diamond’s products had significantly decreased and Blue Diamond’s brand and consumer reputation had deteriorated.”
PLANT-BASED PROTEIN SECTOR DOUBLES IN A YEAR With the sale of plant-based proteins increasing by 46 per cent in FY20, the economic opportunities of the plant-based market remain largely untapped, the latest report from alternative protein think tank Food Frontier says.
Food Frontier commissioned Deloitte Access Economics for
its 2020 State of the Industry report, which found a doubling of manufacturing revenue (up from $35 million to $70 million), workforce, and number of products on retail shelves (to more than 200). Of those products, 42 per cent were from Australian companies.
One third of Australians are limiting their meat consumption, Deloitte said.
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