Orica Acquires Specialty Food Ingredients Distributor

November 8, 2004

Orica Limited today announced the continued expansion of Chemnet’s food distribution business with the acquisition of leading Australasian specialty distributor, Woods and Woods for $25m (effective 1 December).

Woods and Woods was established in 1935 and has an excellent reputation in the marketplace for supplying a wide range of natural ingredients to the food, dairy, confectionery, pharmaceutical, medicinal herb and pet food industries in Australia, New Zealand and China.

Orica Managing Director and CEO Malcolm Broomhead, said that the acquisition represented a logical extension of Orica’s food distribution business that is highly complementary with the recently acquired Bronson and Jacobs product portfolio.

"There are significant opportunities for the business going forward in terms of offering a larger customer base an improved product portfolio and leveraging Bronson and Jacobs’s Asian distribution platform", he said.

The CEO of Woods and Woods, Paul Moore, will remain with the business going forward, overseeing the integration process and developing Chemnet’s broader food and ingredients business, which has sales revenue of approximately $120m per annum.

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