Griffin's Foods

Griffin's Food Limited
Subsidiary
Industry Food
Founded 1864
Headquarters Auckland, New Zealand
Products Griffins, Eta, Nice & Natural
Number of employees
800
Parent Independent (1864-1962)
Nabisco (1962-1990)
Danone (1990-2006)
Pacific Equity Partners (2006-2014)
Universal Robina (2014-present)
Website http://www.griffins.co.nz/

Griffin's Foods Limited is an Australasian owned biscuit, snack food and confectionery manufacturer operating in New Zealand. The company has sales of approximately NZ$300 million.

History

The company was founded by John Griffin in Nelson, New Zealand in 1864 [1] as a flour and cocoa miller. Newspaper records show biscuits were in production by the 1880s and the confectionery arm of the business launched in 1886. By the 1890s Griffins were producing a range of candied peels and by the late 1900s drinking cocoa.


Expansion and Subsidiary

The company went public (as Griffin & Sons) to fund expansion the replacement of a factory destroyed by fire. It expanded, making army ration biscuits during World War II [1] until in 1962 when it was purchased by Nabisco.[2] In 1989 Griffin's acquired biscuit company Hudsons, taking on the copyright for the famous Hudson's icon Cookie Bear. When Nabisco was effectively broken up, Griffin's was acquired by Danone [3] in 1990. In 2006 Danone divested Griffin's to Pacific Equity Partners.[4]

Universal Robina

In July 2014, Pacific Equity Partners divested of Griffin's Foods, selling the operations to Universal Robina for NZ$700 million.[5]

In October 2015, Universal Robina announced they were expanding the Griffin's brand to the South-East Asian market starting with the Philippines.

Locations

Today, Griffin's has two factories in Auckland. A Lower Hutt plant closed in 2008 with the loss of 200 jobs,[6] with all production transferred to the Auckland sites. In 2009 Griffin's moved the production of its cream filled biscuits, which account for 2.5% of production, to Fiji.[7] The company currently employs approximately 800 people.[1]

Products

The company's food range comprises:

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, November 28, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.