Page 6 - Food&Drink March 2022

NEWS
$111m raise for SPC
SPC Global’s capital raise brings new investors into the business and members to the board, a sale and leaseback of its Shepparton site, and funds to fuel its growth.
SPC CEO Rob Giles said the funding round showed the company’s commitment to reinvesting in Australian products.
“In line with our vision for continued growth, we are doing all we can to highlight Australian food and beverages internationally. Local partnerships like these make our mission possible,” Giles said.
The local partnerships come in the form of equity investments from The Australian Meat Industry Superannuation Trust (AMIST) and the family office of Peregrine Corporation managing director Khalil (‘Charlie’) Shahin.
Peregrine Corporation is the largest privately owned company in South Australia and eight in the country, with $2.9 billion revenue in FY21, up 15 per cent on the previous year. It owns the On The Run brand of service stations and convenience stores in South Australia. It also operates 120 Smokemart & Giftbox retail stores nationwide and has the state licence for Krispy Kreme.
Rifai said the SPC board believes Australia’s food security must be less reliant on imports, instead leaning on the excellence of Australian offerings.
“SPC continues to work together with business and government to ensure the long-term viability of food manufacturing in Australia,” Rifai said. ✷
SPC chair Rifai Hussein
Young mums lucrative for Halo Food Co
AUSTRALIAN online health and wellness business The Healthy Mummy Holdings (THM) has been acquired by ASX listed Halo Food Co for $17 million plus an earn-out subject to performance milestones.
Founded by Rhian Allen in 2010, THM had a recorded revenue of roughly $21 million and a normalised EBITDA
of $4 million.
The business targets mothers
of young children wanting to lose weight and has built one of the world’s largest communities for them.
It has almost two million Facebook followers, 600,000+ Facebook private group members, and 235,000+ Instagram followers.
Halo CEO Danny Rotman said the rationale for the deal was THM’s position as a leading player in the lucrative sector of women focused on weight loss,
health, and wellbeing, in this instance, being women with young children.
THM is an established, profitable and cash generating business, he said.
Its different product and service offering meant there would be substantial cross- selling opportunities for each company's proprietary brands.
The manufacturing synergies
would see around $4-5 million per annum of THM products being brought in-house to Halo manufacturing facilities in Melbourne and Sydney.
Halo said THM has higher margin proprietary brand sales which will transform Halo's sales mix and increase gross profit and help the company become a vertically integrated business/manufacturer. ✷
Beak & Johnston: $90m ready meal facility underway
ONE of Australia’s largest chilled ready meal manufacturers, Beak & Johnston, is investing $90 million in a new kitchen facility in Western Sydney.
The 12,000 square metre greenfield site sits next to the company’s existing 10,000 square metre City Kitchen factory and is expected to open in October.
Beak & Johnston CEO Ray Hanly said the expansion would deliver the trifecta of additional capacity, new product ranges, and more jobs.
The company started in 1986 and has grown to include meals, pastries, sausages, and burgers. Its brands are Simmone Logue, Pitango, Beak & Sons, Strength Meals Co, as
well as private label businesses. Hanly said the food
processing build will feature “state-of-the-art” high speed, automated lines to increase product quality and shelf life with oven baking, chilling, and freezing capabilities.
A fully automated pastry line with leading-edge baking, cooling, and handling solutions; end of line packing automation to reduce manual handling and
improve productivity; and increased pallet storage space will also be part of the fitout.
Hanly said, “As Australia’s leading producer in ready-made fresh meals, we take pride in ensuring we stay across the latest innovations and technology with food production. ✷
Head to the Food & Drink Business Podcast to listen to our chat with CEO Ray Hanly.
6 | Food&Drink business | March 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au