The National Australian Bank (NAB) today predicted Australian sugar production levels for 2011-12 will be between 3.8 and 3.9 million tonnes. According to the NAB, this amount is not as high as Australian sugar producers will have hoped. The news coincides with a current surge in Chinese investor interest targeting Australia’s lucrative sugar industry, recently reported by Australian Food News. NAB Agribusiness Economist Michael Creed said, “In Australia it has been a very difficult season... ...Read more »

Foreign investors continue to target Australia’s lucrative sugar industry, as Chinese-owned Tully Sugar Limited vies with Singapore-based conglomerate Sucrogen to purchase Queensland’s Proserpine Co-operative Sugar Milling Association Limited (PCSMA). The PCSMA, a co-operative sugar mill that is wholly-owned by 214 sugarcane suppliers, is Australia’s fifth-largest raw sugar mill. Tully Sugar Limited, which is owned by the China Oil and Food Company (COFC), already produces raw sugar for export... ...Read more »

The Coca-Cola Company and its Chinese bottling partners today announced a new investment of US$4 billion over the next three years, commencing 2012. By the end of 2011, Coca-Cola and its China bottling partners Swire Beverages Ltd. and COFCO Coca-Cola Beverage Co. Ltd. will have invested more than $3 billion in China over the last three years, bringing the total investment to $7 billion between 2009 and 2014 in the largest and fastest-growing consumer market in the world. Chairman and CEO of The... ...Read more »

A gourmet ice cream store in Hong Kong that sources milk from Australia is breaking new taboos in the ice cream world with its French Lobster flavour ice cream. Owner of the Ice Cream Gallery, ice cream chef Arron Lui revealed his most recent foray into unusual flavours at the Hong Kong Food Expo last week. Mr Liu says the French Lobster ice cream is the most complicated of the 600 flavours of ice cream he has developed since he began in 1994. The Ice Cream Gallery’s French range also includes... ...Read more »

Nestlé has confirmed it is in talks about a possible takeover of Chinese confectionery company Hsu Fu Chi.The world’s largest food maker said yesterday (4 July) that it was “engaged in preliminary confidential discussions” with the Chinese firm. Nestlé declined to comment further. In a notice to the Singapore Stock Exchange, Hsu Fu Chi had said yesterday (4 July) that it was in “preliminary discussions” in relation to a “possible transaction relating to the company,... ...Read more »

Australia’s largest cafe group, The Coffee Club, will enter the emerging Chinese coffee drinking market this month, opening a cafe in the Yuexiu District in Guangzhou, with a major franchise license sold to the Guangzhou Golden Swan Enterprise Co. John Lazarou, Director of The Coffee Club, said now is the perfect time for the business to enter China, with a strong coffee culture growing in the country despite most Chinese traditionally drinking tea. “With over 1.3 billion people, a growing middle... ...Read more »

Brazil has become the top-ranked developing market for retail expansion, according to consultants at A.T. Kearney.The firm said today (6 June) that Brazil jumped from fifth last year on its Global Retail Development Index (GRDI). Brazil’s rise came as India and China slipped in the list. The GDRI ranking mirrors the “dramatic changes” that have taken place in global markets, and the varying impacts they have had on different emerging economies, said A.T. Kearney. It found that South... ...Read more »

Bright Dairy, one of China’s major dairy manufacturers, is to invest about CNY1.4bn (US$214.5m) to build a new plant in Shanghai.The plant, which will make fresh milk, UHT milk and yoghurt, is scheduled to start operation in 2013 and will be the largest dairy plant in Asia. With annual production capacity of about 600,000 tonnes, Bright expects it will add CNY4.64bn to its annual sales. “Our next target is to be the leader in the domestic fresh milk market and raise our share in the... ...Read more »

Nestlé today announced that it had signed a partnership agreement taking a 60% stake in the Chinese food company Yinlu Foods Group (Yinlu), subject to regulatory approval in China. Other details of the transaction, including the acquisition price, are undisclosed. Family-owned Yinlu is a well established household brand in China and a significant marketer for ready-to-drink peanut milk and ready-to-eat canned rice porridge. Nestlé said the agreement builds on an already successful partnership between... ...Read more »

US spice maker McCormick is working to build its presence in developing markets, with the company looking for 12% of its turnover to come from these markets by 2015, up from 9% in 2010. The company sees India as a key part of this strategy, with McCormick chairman, president and CEO Alan Wilson outlining “four avenues of growth” in the country. Wilson highlighted the importance of the market, saying that the country has five times the spice use than than of the US. He added that while... ...Read more »