Honeycomb heads south
Robern Menz has taken delivery of Nestlé’s Violet Crumble line as it welcomes the iconic brand into the fold.
South Australian manufacturer Robern Menz has been busy bedding down the production line that creates the iconic Violet Crumble in its Adelaide facility.
The company bought the brand, and the equipment that creates it, off Nestlé in a multi-million dollar deal earlier this year that returns it to Australian ownership, a mission that has involved a factory refit and extension and new warehousing facilities.
The Violet Crumble brand is still one of Australia’s great food icons, according to the chief executive of the fourth-generation family company Phil Sims.
“It’s about what Australians long for when they are overseas, and their memories from childhood, and Violet Crumble consistently comes up in the same conversation as Vegemite and Tim Tams,” Sims says.
“To get hold of that kind of brand and to take it from its current base back to the distribution and volumes that it used to have is exciting for us.”
The manufacturing equipment has now been transported to Adelaide from Nestlé’s facility in Melbourne and is the process of being reassembled by Robern Menz.
“That’s involved lots of work in our factory,” Sims says. “The brand’s sales, marketing and distribution, which has been handled by Nestlé during the transition, also comes across to us at the end of September.”
