Page 7 - Food&Drink magazine April 2022

Bubs daigou deal
Bubs founder and CEO Kristy Carr.
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ASX listed Bubs Australia has signed an equity share deal with its largest corporate daigou distributor, giving Willis Trading a 4.82 per cent stake in the business.
Willis Trading, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Alpha Professional Holdings, was Bubs’ largest customer throughout FY21 and the first half of FY22. It is the lead distributor for Bubsâ and CapriLacâ brands in the corporate daigou channel.
The deal is conditional on Alpha Group meeting product purchase milestones of at least $50 million in FY22 and at least $80 to $120 million in FY23.
Bubs founder and CEO Kristy Carr said the company and Willis Trading had worked closely for several years.
“Together we have successfully returned Bubsâ Daigou sales to high growth,
delivering record revenues in the first half of FY22, increasing 276 per cent on the prior year, now exceeding pre-Covid levels,” Carr said.
For Carr, the deal deepens Bubs’ daigou channel engagement and ultimately its consumers in China.
“[Willis Trading’s] deep understanding of Chinese consumers provides more direct identification of our target consumers and their product needs in real time.
“Word of mouth and peer endorsement is critical in our category, and we view the Daigou Channel as expert community builders.
“Through one person, we can reach hundreds of consumers,” Carr said.
Bubs chairman Dennis Lin said the daigou channel had evolved from a fragmented network to a genuine corporatised channel,
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and the alliance between Bubs and Willis Trading showed what can be achieved when a channel and brand work as partners.
“Daigous play an integral role in assisting Australian brands in understanding and reaching Chinese consumers, while simultaneously enhancing brand equity.
“We have the upmost respect for what this entrepreneurial community have built and the contribution they have made in creating value in many leading Australian brands, including Bubs,” Lin said.
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TURBINE APPOINTMENT
Australia’s first purpose-built, end-to-end collaborative food and beverage manufacturing precinct – Turbine – has appointed Frances Cayley as project director.
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Turbine project advances
THE Turbine Precinct on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast has received a further $33.4m from the federal government.
Turbine’s goal is to showcase a new way for food and beverage manufacturing to operate and gain national and international recognition as a blueprint for collaborative manufacturing.
Led by the Food and Agribusiness Network (FAN), it has been a work-in-progress for five years to position the Sunshine Coast as a centre to support food and beverage
businesses to scale.
The project received $8.78m in
November through the federal government’s modern manufacturing grants, and appointed Frances Cayley as project director earlier this month.
FAN CEO Emma Greenhatch, who has spearheaded the project since its inception, said the challenges for small food and beverage companies to scale can be immense.
“With such high barriers to growth in our industry, collaboration is key to ensure
we have a resilient and competitive food and beverage manufacturing sector into
the future.
“The Turbine precinct will house end-to-end infrastructure and support, that will allow start-ups and SMEs to take a great idea through to commercialisation and export
– all in the one location,” Greenhatch said.
Turbine chair Shay Chalmers said, “The project will demonstrate what’s possible when you build a culture of ‘co-opetition’, where businesses and organisations share a vision and find ways to work together.”
It will also foster a pipeline of skills for the future, she said.
It is expected more than
680 predominately high-value manufacturing roles and retail trades will be created, and roughly $300 million in revenue generated by project partners.
Turbine is due to commence operations in late 2023.
Federal Member for Fairfax Ted O’Brien and Food & Agribusiness Network CEO Emma Greenhatch.
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | April 2022 | Food&Drink business | 7