Food Revolution Group presses first Juice Lab orders from Metcash
The Food Revolution Group’s Juice Lab products will be stocked in Victorian IGA and Foodworks supermarkets.
Food processing company The Food Revolution Group (ASX: FOD) has extended the reach of its product range after confirming that its Juice Lab products have been deployed within Metcash Victorian distribution centres and are now available to both Victorian IGA and Foodworks supermarkets.
The Juice Lab brand launched in Australia in 2015 with a range of cold-filled fruit and vegetable juice combinations to made quick inroads into a market that was looking for innovative new products aimed at health-conscious consumers.
Some of the unique selling points underpinning the Juice Lab brand include the absence of added sugar, concentrates, artificial colours and flavours, preservatives, as well as, implementing fully recyclable bottles and introducing anti-oxidants directly into its products.
The deal announced today further extends The Food Revolution Groups’ strong domestic footprint, with its juice products already being sold via Woolworths, Aldi and Coles supermarkets.
Partnering up for a market boost
Metcash (ASX: MTS) is a leading Australian wholesale distribution and marketing company with sales of more than $14 billion in the past financial year.
Its sales footprint covers almost 1,700 supermarket retail stores across Australia, 2,700 retail liquor stores and nearly 700 hardware stores. The company provides merchandise, operational and marketing support to these businesses, which are often family-owned and operated enterprises.
In addition to the deal with Metcash, Food Revolution recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with international cross-border e-commerce platform ICC Global which is expected to order $8 million of Food Revolution’s products by the end of 2020.
The Food Revolution Group focuses on Australian-based food processing using a combination of conventional juice processing equipment and custom-developed processes to manufacture a range of juices, fibres, infused fruits and fruit waters.
In a bid to both boost output and improve production efficiency, the processing company announced an upgrade to its Mill Park processing facility in Victoria following increasing demand from Asian consumers.
Furthermore, the company sells its range of products as branded products or ingredients to customers domestically and overseas.
One of its leading innovations is Current Counter Extraction (CCE) technology which was developed in conjunction with Australia’s leading scientific research agencies, the CSIRO, to extract juice from fruit and vegetables.
According to chief executive officer John Florey, one of the key rationales behind the tie-up with Metcash and ICC is to grow the company’s sales profile in the Chinese market.
“While our recent efforts have been on extending our distribution in China and other international markets, we are continuing to work to grow the availability of our products in Australia as well which underpins our business and provides a solid platform to expand into China,” he said.
Today’s news helped Food Revolution shares tick up to $0.10 per share in morning trade, up 5.2% while Metcash shares edged up 0.35% to $2.89 per share.