Suntory Beverage & Food (SBF) is selling its Oceania region fresh coffee business to UCC Coffee subsidiary, UCC ANZ Management. The sale, worth $229 million, covers Australia, New Zealand and Singapore operations and is expected to be completed by mid 2022.
SBF’s fresh coffee business is the largest coffee roaster in ANZ with brands Toby’s Estate, Atomic, L’affare, Robert Harris, and Mocopan.
It also has contract roasting operations that service the retail and convenience sector.
Parent company’s, Suntory Food & Beverage, income for CY20 was roughly $14 billion and revenue $1.5 billion. Oceania represents four percent of revenue and six per cent of profit.
SBF’s fresh coffee business CEO for the region Dean Divehall said the company had been conducting a strategic review for the last six months.
“We assessed options that would maximise value of the fresh coffee business in this region, including the opportunity to enhance value under potential new ownership.
“The sale to UCC represents a positive outcome for employees, customers and wider stakeholders of our fresh coffee business in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore,” Divehall said.
CEO of SBF Kazuhiro Saito said UCC sees the brand strength of the SBF products.
“They anticipate further growing the business and brands by leveraging their international experience and capability in coffee roasting, and their extensive global distribution channels,” Saito said.
UCC is a global coffee business that manages coffee estates, raw ingredient procurement and importing, R&D and quality assurance, manufacturing, product distribution and sales.
It is headquartered in Japan with offices across Asia, Europe and the Americas.
UCC Group CEO Gota Ueshima said the addition of the fresh coffee business was “highly complementary” to its existing operations.
“We intend to maximise the potential of UCC and the fresh coffee business to achieve dynamic and sustainable growth in the global coffee market,” Ueshima said.
In Oceania, Suntory Food & Beverage’s operates as Suntory Beverage & Food Asia, Frucor Suntory, and Suntory Coffee International, manufacturing and distributing non-alcoholic beverages through Frucor Suntory and Suntory Coffee International.
Frucor Suntory was #50 on the Food & Drink Business 2021 Top 100 Food & Drink Companies report.
The sale agreement does not impact SBF’s other businesses in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
Suntory Beverage & Food was advised by UBS and Clayton Utz.
