Page 61 - Food&Drink Nov-Dec 2020

FREEDOM FOODS FINDS INVENTORY ISSUES
A $21 million inventory write-down at the end of May turned out to be just the start of Freedom Foods’ woes in 2020. The sudden departure of CFO and company secretary Campbell Nicholas in late June was followed immediately by CEO Rory Macleod taking leave pending further announcement.
The company went into a trading halt but not before
21 million shares were traded and a 15 per cent price drop. Within days he had resigned, and the company was looking at more than $60 million in inventory write-down, $10 million in bad debt and a board facing questions it was unable to answer. Ashurst and PwC were engaged to investigate the debacle.
Since then it extended its trading halt until the end of November and appointed Michael Perich as interim CEO. The Perich family is the
“ The ransomware attack on Lion in June forced the brewer to take all its systems offline, causing temporary shortages and disruptions to supply.”
YEAR IN REVIEW
majority shareholder, owning 54 per cent of the business. It said Perich’s “deep understanding” of the business would provide the stability, focus and leadership needed to manage its issues.
RANSOMWARE
ATTACKS LION
On 8 June, a cyber attack on brewing giant Lion was caused by ransomware. By 15 June, the company said it had made good progress bringing key systems back online but there was still “some way to go” before normal manufacturing and customer service can resume. A second attack occurred a week later, which was anticipated.
The company was at pains to point out that while service levels were not at normal levels, it was still “brewing, packing and distributing”.
“It’s important to reinforce that while this attack has had an impact on our operations, we are still brewing beer and manufacturing our dairy and drinks brands.
“We have also managed to keep shipping products to many of our customers.
“While our service is still not at our expected levels, we are doing our very best to resume normal operations,” it said.
On 1 July, the company said all its nine major breweries were back up and running.
LARGEST ORGANIC MILK PRODUCER GOES INTO VA Australia’s largest producer of certified organic milk, Organic Dairy Farmers of Australia (ODFA), entered voluntary administration. It was estimated it had more than $11.5 million in debts.
The co-op is 100 per cent owned by 40 family farmers, supplying milk from three main dairy regions of Victoria, central and north-west Tasmania. It provides milk for 5am Yoghurt, Lemnos and Pure Organic Milks. It also has a milk bottling factory in Geelong where it produces butter and other dairy products. The factory employs more than 20 people.
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