Heinz keen to grow Golden Circle brand

Posted by Daniel Palmer on 2nd March 2009

Heinz Australia has advised that manufacturing job cuts are not on the agenda following the acquisition of Golden Circle in December, as it seeks to strengthen the brand it acquired for $288 million. Golden Circle has around 1000 employees working at their two manufacturing facilities, Northgate in Brisbane and Mill Park in Melbourne.
Heinz spokeswoman, Jessica Ramsden, reported that no manufacturing jobs had been cut since the completion of the takeover, with the company actually planning to increase warehouse capacity by 50 per cent at Northgate.

“There will be minimal impact on manufacturing jobs at Northgate and Mill Park. We have plans to invest in the infrastructure of both,” she advised, according to The Courier Mail. “We plan to grow the Golden Circle brand and the production facilities are a very important part of that.”

In the wake of a review of operations, management and administrative functions of the Golden Circle brand are to be consolidated at Heinz’s Australian base in Melbourne, the company reported last week, a decision that would lead to some redundancies.

Heinz formally took ownership of Golden Circle on 19 December, 2008, with the integration likely to be completed by around the middle of the year.

Heinz Managing Director, Peter Widdows, said, upon announcing the takeover, that Heinz planned to position the Golden Circle business as a healthy brand in both domestic and international markets.
“Heinz is a substantial global food company with considerable marketing expertise and we propose to grow Golden Circle as a “healthy product” brand in many new markets,” Mr Widdows explained. “In this transaction, we saw the opportunity to produce Golden Circle food and beverages both efficiently and profitably and we see Golden Circle’s people, growers and customers as vital to our future success.”