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Acknowledging this, we cover
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design and formulation
engineering
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process
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merchandising
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Then there are the legal
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Publisher |
CadSchweppes shuffles US beverage top deck
Wipes clean up
Hats off to caps market
Kraft Foods’ profits up 22%
ABF grows operating profit 14%
Invensys to sell more assets
US DoJ sticks up EU-approved label deal
Nutrition facts free for download
People
CadSchweppes
shuffles US beverage top deck
 UK sweets and drinks firm
Cadbury Schweppes has reassigned responsibilities in its US operations.
Snapple boss Jack Belsito adds Connecticut-based beverage maker Mott's to
his portfolio, while Mott’s president Brad Irwin moves to CadSchweppes’
Americas confectionery division as president-USA.
Snapple’s chief marketing officer
Michael Sands assumes responsibility for Mott's marketing while Mott's
chief financial officer Dave Gerics assumes responsibility for both
companies. Snapple’s Rich Allen becomes senior vice president of
business development for Snapple-owned distribution systems.
Cleaning
products
Wipes clean
up
Research just out from Packaged
Facts shows that wipes have been the biggest force for growth in the US
household cleaning market in the last five years.
It says Americans spent over $872
million on wipes and accessories like mopping systems in 2002. Convenient
cleaning products seem to be set to drive sales towards the $4 billion
mark by 2007, says Packaged Facts’ Don Montuori.
Introduced in 2002, the Clorox
ReadyMop became the best performing new non-food brand that year, with
sales over $200 million.
"The
new breed of mop and electrostatic broom mean consumers can clean a floor
with a minimum of effort, making people likely to do so more frequently.
The growth potential here is truly staggering.”
Markets
Hats off to
caps market
Market researcher Freedonia
predicts the $4.6 billion US caps and closures market will outpace
inflation to grow 5.1 percent a year until 2007.
Driving growth is a shift toward
value-added configurations such as dispensing and child-resistant
closures. “Plastic closures will remain the largest and fastest growing
product while beverages remain the largest and fastest growing market,”
says Freedonia.
Parts of the $3,900 report are
available separately for around $30 per section; the executive summary is
$60.
Finance - 1
Kraft Foods’
profits up 22%
Kraft Foods, the world’s second
biggest food company, earned
$848 million on sales of $7,359
million for 1Q2003, an increase of 22.4 percent on sales that were up
three percent. This pushed diluted earnings per share to $0.49, a rise of
22.5 percent.
During the quarter Kraft said it
would buy $40m/y Egyptian biscuit and snack maker Family Nutrition
Company. It also said it will sell its $27m/y retail rice business in
Germany, Austria and Denmark.
Finance - 2
ABF grows operating
profit 14%
Associated British Foods reported
operating profit up 14 percent to GBP204 million on group sales up eight
percent to GBP2,259 million for the 24 weeks ending 31 March 2003.
Adjusted earnings per share were up 14 percent to 19.3 pence.
During the period ABF bought Mazola
and Ovaltine.
M&A
Struggling UK engineering company
Invensys plans to sell its GBP2.9 billion/y development division, which
includes the loss-making software company Baan. Industry analysts say the
sale could raise about GBP1.55 billion ($2.44 billion).
The embattled company, formed in
1999 by the merger of BTR and Siebe, sold assets worth GBP1.8 billion in
2002, cutting its business to just three divisions - development,
production management and rail systems.
Invensys reckons growth will come
from productivity consulting to customers in the process, hybrid and
discrete manufacturing industries.
M&A
US DoJ sticks
up EU-approved label deal
The US Department of Justice has
nixed a $420 million merger of US number three self-adhesive label maker
MACtac with the number two supplier, Finnish paper products maker
UPM-Kymmene’s Raflatac, even though the combined company will be smaller
than top dog Avery Dennison.
The DoJ also said it will
investigate alleged criminal price fixing practices in the industry. The
European Commission approved the merger in October 2002.
Nutrition
Nutrition
facts free for download
Software house HealtheTech and the
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have launched a PC-based searchable
version of the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.
It contains more than 6,000 foods,
including generic and some branded foods, and data on some 117 nutrients.
Users can retrieve and display the
complete nutritional information on any of the foods with a simple search.
The user may also select among available portions, enter a new amount, or
enter a specific gram weight and the nutritional information is scaled
appropriately in the display.
Last November HealtheTech and ARS
brought out a similar version based on a Palm personal digital assistant
(PDA).
The database is available for free
download at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp. |
