A2 profits slump
A2 Milk Company has reported a big drop in net profit to $112 million for the first half of 2020-21, down from $172.3m in the same period a year ago.
Total revenue fell 16 per cent to $631m because of coronavirus pandemic-related challenges, including severe disruption to the trans-Tasman dairy company's valuable daigou reseller channel supplying locally acquired infant formula to Chinese households.
However, the company reported strong performance in China for its locally labelled infant nutrition brand, with revenue up 45pc after lifting its retail footprint to about 22,000 mother and baby stores.
Solid performance in liquid milk sales in Australia lifted revenue growth 16pc, and gave A2 Milk an 11.7pc share of the white milk market for home consumption.
New A2 managing director, David Bortolussi conceded the half year results were, however, generally disappointing, although the fundamentals for the company were still strong, particularly in China.
COVID-19 had caused a lot of supply and demand volatility, including trade inventory building up in the wrong places.
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Freedom assets off-loaded
Freedom Foods Group's sell-off of its cereals and snacks business, including its own brand named Freedom Foods product range, has completed the transaction's first stage.
The Arnotts Group has taken ownership of some of Freedom's fixed factory assets after paying $16.1 million, with the remaining assets to be transferred at the end of the month.
Freedom will continue running the company's plants, in the NSW Riverina and at Dandenong in Victoria, until the Arnotts deal is wrapped up for a total payment of about $20m.
The company expects it will, however, only net about $11m after adjustments for transaction costs and discharging equipment leases.
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Rex flying low
Regional Express is not expecting much improvement in its country airline network's passenger traffic until next financial year.
In the six months to December 31 the airline's passenger numbers slumped 71.2 per cent and passenger revenue fell 70pc to $43 million.
The major regional carrier, charter service provider and pilot training business has posted a $900,000 underlying operating loss for the first half of 2020-21, but swung to a $9.9m statutory after tax profit with the help of federal and state government assistance programs following COVID-19 lockdowns.
Total airline revenue of $65.6m was almost doubled by government grants and assistance worth $59.4m.
Rex chairman Lim Kim Hai said without government assistance Rex would have had to shut down 90 per cent of its network and regional carriers and rural communities offered "our grateful thanks to the federal government".
Meanwhile, Rex has delayed its pre-Easter plans to start flying its newly launched jet services to Brisbane, opting instead to divert its Sydney to Queensland metro fights into Gold Coast Airport at Coolangatta.
The airport was more willing to reduce costs and provide financial incentives for the airline than nearby Brisbane.
Its first Sydney-Melbourne 737 800 jet service began on March 1 and looks set to expand to South Australia with a Melbourne-Adelaide route launching in April.
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Cider promotion launch
The Australian cider industry has launched a series of education videos to market Australian craft cider overseas.
Supported by the Australian Government's Export and Regional Wine Support Package, the videos feature writer and backyard cider maker Max Allen and master sommelier Sebastian Crowther discussing flavours, styles and production methods which make Australian craft cider unique.
The videos support the recently launched Australian Cider Guide, which is available in English, Simplified Chinese and Japanese, as part of a broader export marketing strategy
They will also lead the promotion of Australian Cider Day on March 13 when the industry's peak body will run a trade event in Tokyo
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McKeon has influence
GrainGrowers chief executive officer David McKeon (pictured) has been recognised as an "Association Influencer of 2020" by the Australasian Society of Association Executives.
Association Influencers is an inaugural program highlighting contributions of individuals in the association community across Australia and New Zealand.
An independent judging panel of association leaders selected influencers based on how they demonstrated influence, exemplary leadership, unrivalled guidance, strength in resilience and service to the sector in the past 12 months.
"David leads by example as chief executive of GrainGrowers," said chairman Brett Hosking.
"His passion for representing growers' interests at a national level is unparalleled in the industry and attitude flows down through the organisation."
Last year GrainGrowers led efforts to implement a sustainability framework for the industry, successfully engaging all other grains representative bodies to future proof the grain supply chain from challenges ahead.
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Trans-Tasman agritech MOU
Agritech New Zealand has formalised its relationship with its sister organisation the Australian Agritech Association (AusAgritech).
Both share a common goal of accelerating development of agricultural technologies to enable farmers and growers to boost productivity and profitability, more sustainably.
A memorandum of understanding has been designed to highlight opportunities for a collaborative trans-Tasman region agritech hub.
AusAgritech chairman Andrew Coppin said his association would promote this activity to relevant government agencies, major Australian agribusiness partners and its rapidly growing cohort of agritech members.
AgritechNZ was seeking to extend global opportunities of a more formal partnership it was preparing between the Western Growers Innovation & Technology Center and the vibrant agritech ecosystem encouraged by the NZ government's Agritech Industry Transformation Plan.
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Businesses seek ACCC help
Small businesses increased their calls for help and advice to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to more than 3400 in the second half of 2020, and enquiries about legal rights and obligations jumped 30 per cent.
The ACCC's latest Small Business in Focus report, said small business enquiries were up 60 per cent in 2020 compared to the previous year, partly due to businesses seeking information about obligations to consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
About 70 per cent of all businesses contacting the ACCC in the second half of last year were micro-sized enterprises with four staff or fewer.
ACCC deputy chairman Mick Keogh said many had limited resources and were vulnerable to misconduct from larger suppliers, so it was important they understood they had certain protections under the Australian Consumer Law.
The federal government is currently progressing reforms to strengthen existing unfair contract term protections.
"The business-to-business unfair contract term law is very important for small businesses and we hope to see new, stronger laws effective later this year," Mr Keogh said.
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