Private-equity-owned Kilcoy Global Foods (KGF) has acquired a burger factory in Australia from Tyson Foods.
Queensland-based Kilcoy, which processes grain- and grass-fed beef, along with lamb and goat meat, said the purchase of the Coominya site was completed on 28 October. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Coominya plant, which is also located in Queensland and close to KGF’s Kilcoy facility, supplies beef burgers to McDonald’s. It also exports to Asia, producing around three million patties a day.
Jiah Falcke, KGF’s Australia president, said in a statement: “The potential business synergies are exceptional. We’ve been supplying to Coominya for more than 20 years.
“The Coominya team has the same high standards that we do and for us the fit made perfect business sense.”
Tyson Foods had not responded to Just Food’s request for comment on the disposal at the time of writing.
The US giant has been exiting businesses of late, selling plants and cutting staff. The latest was the sale, announced in August, of its minority share in an Indian joint venture with Godrej Agrovet.
That same month, news emerged Tyson planned to lay off as many as 1,000 workers at its Wilkesboro plant in North Carolina. A month earlier, the sale of a poultry complex in Georgia to fellow US processor House of Raeford Farms was put in motion.
And earlier in the year, more than 1,000 jobs were put on the line as Tyson revealed its exit from a pork facility in Perry, Iowa.
Meanwhile, KGF said it plans to invest in the Coominya site, without providing details.
The business was set up in 1953 by the Kennedy family, trading as the Kilcoy Pastoral Company. The company changed its name in 2013 when it was acquired by China-based private-equity firm Hosen Capital.
A number of M&A deals have since been closed, giving KGF a presence in the US and China, as well as Australia.
Ruprecht Co. in the US was bought in 2014 and then Weidao Foods in China the following year. In 2019, Greenswift, also in China, was added to the group.
In Australia, grass-fed beef processor Hardwicks was acquired in 2021 and KGF purchased another facility in Lance Creek, Victoria, the next year.
A selection of KGF’s brands includes Kilcoy Diamond, Ebony Black Angus, Carrara Wagyu and Hardwicks.
