Unilever was among the companies issuing second-quarter results this week – and, after a period of higher food revenues, said it is making targeted efforts to grow the business. Elsewhere Hain Celestial acquired Europe plant-based food and beverage maker Mona Group. just-food also interviewed Seabrook Crisps CEO Jonathan Bye about the management buy-out at the UK crisp firm and to US start-up Flapjacked's co-founder David Bacon about its ambitions. Here is the week in quotes.
"In food which has been a significant cash contributor to the company, our priority now is to get the business growing, while sustaining the strong levels of profitability and cash flow. We're doing this by investing in the areas where there is most opportunity for growth, like expansion in emerging markets with our cooking ingredients and the move towards more natural products and simplifying our portfolio" – Unilever CEO Paul Polman suggests the company will start investing in areas of growth in food.
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By GlobalData"We believe plant-based foods will become more and more a part of our daily diets. With this acquisition we will be able to further expand our healthy food offerings and capitalise on plant-based eating trends" – Bart Dobbelaere, CEO of Hain Celestial's European arm comments on the company's acquisition of plant-based food and beverage firm Mona Group in Europe.
"This is a serious commitment. We will be open and honest about what goes into our food, how we make our food and the ingredients we choose" – Campbell Soup Co. CEO Denise Morrison says the firm has recognised the need to increase transparency and communicate these changes to consumers and is launching a whatsinmyfood information website to support the strategy.
"We could have carried on exactly as we were. We were out-performing everyone else. What this will hopefully allow us to do is accelerate the rate of growth. We're doing a lot better than our competitive set and we're hoping to do even better but there's no complacency" – Seabrook Crisps CEO Jonathan Bye explains why the UK crisp firm's management led a buy-out, backed by private-equity firm LDC.
"We are finding there is a burnout on the bars and shakes…so we think Mighty Muffins fits in very well with that segment of people trying to get a bit of protein on the go" – David Bacon, co-founder of US firm Flapjacked, believes consumers are looking for protein in a greater range of products.
"I envision it will be a very good company now that we have both the bread and sweet baked goods side of that business combined and have very good synergies in the distribution part of our value chain. It is going to require a lot of detailed work but at the end of the day it will result in a very healthy business for the company" – Grupo Bimbo CEO Daniel Servitje shares his thoughts on the bakery group's acquisition of assets from Spain's Panrico.
"The manufacturers of chicken kiev and other similar frozen chicken products are in denial about how dangerous their products can be. This is not the first outbreak linked to these products and won’t be the last unless the industry makes real changes" – Ryan Osterholm, an attorney at PritzkerOlsen comments on the lawsuit filed against US food firm Barber Foods for allegedly selling breaded Chicken Kiev products contaminated with salmonella.
"In the course of the year we will start our first activities in the Chinese greater area of Guangdong with more than 48m people. After a successful launch phase in this region we will start to prepare our market entry in the third Chinese city of over a million inhabitants after Shanghai and Guangdong" – a spokesperson for Haribo confirms plans to expand in China after successful test launches in Shanghai and Guangdong.
"The market for miniatures is increasing and we are expecting an uplift of 4% over the next few years" – a spokesperson for Mars reveals confidence in the miniatures market in Europe as Mars pumps EUR100m into its Brabant Veghel plant to boost capacity of miniatures.
"More and more people in Europe are becoming conscious that what they eat has a major impact on their health and on our planet: A food revolution in Europe is starting and we want to play a leading role in it" – With sales on the rise, Wessanen CEO Christophe Barnouin says the Dutch company is looking to capitalise on demand for healthier foods in Europe.
