Another business from the failed Gourmet Food Holdings stable has been secured following the sale of New Zealand organic soup and pre-made meals maker Pitango to Beak and Johnston.
The Sydney-based buyer, a family-run Australian food manufacturer, makes private label products and owns the Mr. Beak’s, Cleavers and The Commissary Food Co brands.
The sale will preserve 35 jobs in Pitango's Auckland production plant and office.
Its parent, Gourmet Food Holdings, went into receivership in November last year, and in February, another business in the group, Victorian crispbread and cracker maker Waterwheel, was sold to Green's General Foods, which also took on the majority of the subsidiary's staff.
The remaining business, Rosella, was closed down by receivers on 1 March after they failed to sell the business and around 70 workers lost their jobs.
“The loss of jobs is disappointing but unavoidable due to the scale of losses the business was sustaining on a weekly basis,” Ferrier Hodgson spokesman Jim Sarantinos said at the time.
The receivers said their effort would go into trying to sell the Rosella brands, which in addition to Rosella, include Aristocrat, Blue Banner, Galiko, Stromboli and The Curry Makers.
