Aussie alliance likely for Mr Chips

The chip maker says it is in negotiations with Australian firm Simplot to establish a manufacturing alliance.

Simplot has just purchased the Birds Eye brand in New Zealand from consumer goods giant Unilever, after being encouraged by the grocery trade here to expand its operations.

Simplot chief executive, Chris Miller, says shipping frozen chips to New Zealand would be like shipping coal to Newcastle.

"New Zealand has a far more competitive manufacturing base than Australia, so a link-up with Mr Chips makes a lot of sense as we develop our Birds Eye brand there.

"Since the sale of Heinz's North Island Fielding plant to McCain in July of this year, numerous trade elements have encouraged us to participate in the market there. This is our first step."

Mr Chips chairman, Graeme Edwards, says the combination of Simplot's technical and marketing strength with Mr Chips' local knowledge and efficient manufacturing will prove mutually rewarding.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.