October 26, 2018
Bega Cheese – owners of the Peanut Company of Australia – expects to have a court determination in its well-publicised peanut butter dispute with Kraft before next June.
Bega Cheese chairman Barry Irvin told Bega’s annual general meeting on Tuesday the acquisition of PCA during the year had secured the company’s supply chain for Bega Peanut Butter.
“Our objective is to grow Australia’s peanut production with the goal of in the future producing all our peanut butter from 100 per cent Australian nuts,” he said.
“It is well-documented that the peanut butter category has been subject to some significant competition this year and that Bega Cheese is in a legal dispute with Kraft Foods.
“We are pleased with our current position in the marketplace and Bega Cheese continues to be confident of its position in the dispute with Kraft; we expect a court determination of legal matters in the first half of (the) 2019 calendar year.”
Bega CEO Paul van Heerwaarden told the meeting he was delighted with the successful integration of Bega Foods and PCA.
“The challenges of peanut butter have been widely discussed but putting that to one side, we have seen a strong and positive consumer response to Bega-branded peanut butter and our promotion of Vegemite,” he said.
Bega’s statutory profit after tax was $28.8 million.
Operating cash flow dropped from $70.2 million to $58.6 million, largely linked to Bega’s acquisitions during the year.
“PCA’s acquisition costs were $2.7 million,” Mr van Heerwaarden said.
“An accounting treatment of the PCA acquisition saw a favourable outcome of $4.4 million on the purchase price.”
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