Last August, Nestlé sold its iconic Peters Ice Cream business to private equity firm Pacific Equity Partners as part of a move to focus its portfolio away from non-core chilled food brands.
The acquisition included Peters’ Mulgrave factory as well as Peters’ brands, sub-brands and Australian licences, which include products like Drumstick, Connoisseur, Heaven, Frosty Fruit and Maxibon.
Splitting its electronic business processes after 17 years of ownership, however, wasn’t so cut and dried. Peters Ice Cream, which holds 60 per cent of the grocery ice cream market, has continued running these on Nestlé’s SAP business software while it established its own IT system.
To complete the division, Peters has had to create an entirely new stand-alone business software system in an unusually short space of time – just seven and a half months – to prepare for a final cut over on 1 August.
Jonathan Hutchings, transition manager at Peters, who was brought in to manage the separation of the two companies, says the cut over will mark an important new phase for the company.
“Following the acquisition of Peters by Pacific Equity Partners, Peters continues to be supported by Nestlé’s IT infrastructure including its ERP system.
“It is important to the new management team that we rapidly establish Peters’ own IT backbone and ERP solution to support the business and our change agenda,” he says.
When it came to choosing an IT system, Hutchings says that Peters sought a solution that catered to the specific needs of an ice cream company. It also wanted to work with a company that could fast-track the roll-out of the software.
For this reason, Hutchings says, Peters chose the M3 QuickStep for Food and Beverage solution from Infor, because it came with a large number of the necessary business processes pre-configured.
The ice cream company also needed a system that could cater to its national network of freezers, to ensure that information on stock levels and deliveries remained up to date and available in real time, so it is also installing Infor’s Sales Route Management system because it can provide real-time access to customer information via mobility solutions.
Hutchings says once the new software system is in place, Peters can move forward.
“Pacific Equity Partners bought the business as they see opportunities to create value,” he says. “The computer system will allow the business to start seizing those opportunities.”
Infor’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Ian Desbrow, says the Peters implementation was a great opportunity for the company to prove that its products are built for speed.
“Anyone can tell you that implementing a complete ERP system in seven and a half months is challenging, but we expect to successfully do just that,” Desbrow says.
