Dutch company swoops on local tea and coffee group
Tuesday, 17 January 2017
Well known Kiwi brands Bell Tea and Hummingbird Coffee will soon grace the tables of overseas consumers as the company prepares for a new export future under a foreign owner.
Netherlands company Jacobs Douwe Egberts(JDE) paid more than $100 million for BrewGroup, which also owns Jed's Coffee, Gravity Coffee and Tiora Tea, as well as Bell, and Christchurch-based Hummingbird.
The Overseas Investment Office approved the sale by BrewGroup's former shareholders Pencarrow Private Equity and its chief executive Mark Hamilton.
READ MORE:
* Bell Tea buys Christchurch's Hummingbird coffee company
* Bell Tea and Coffee Company rebrands as BrewGroup
* Bell Tea sold to private equity
He said BrewGroup would become part of the world's second largest coffee company, offering international marketing opportunities when the businesses were integrated after February.
For example, BrewGroup recently launched coffee bean bags in Australia and would now sell them in other overseas countries through the international network of JDE, a subsidiary of Netherlands-based JAB Holdings.
Hamilton said there would also be local efficiencies with JDE using the BrewGroup distribution warehouse in Auckland for its moccona freeze dried coffee.
The merged business would employ more than 250 people, most of them based in East Tamaki in Auckland, plus the Hummingbird coffee business in Christchurch.
The former Bell Tea Company, established in Dunedin in 1895, was sold to Pencarrow Equity in late 2013 by Foodstuffs.
Bell Tea then acquired Hummingbird Coffee in early 2016 and its name was changed to BrewGroup as coffee sales outstripped tea sales.
The company's ownership changes illustrate Pencarrow Equity's investing in well known brands for expansion, and sometimes sale.
Other companies currently under investment by Pencarrow include the Icebreaker clothing brand, Umbreller software, ARANZ geological modelling company, SolarCity, and BeGroup retirement villages.