By SIMON HENDERY
New Zealand Dairy Foods has been successful in its $6 million bid for North Auckland specialty cheesemaker Puhoi Valley Cheeses.
Puhoi's general manager and shareholder, Corrie den Haring, said the company's 33 shareholders had overwhelmingly accepted an acquisition offer from Dairy Foods.
The chief executive of Dairy Foods, Peter
McClure, said his company, owned by New Zealand Dairy Group and about 7000 of its North Island farmer suppliers, would work to grow the export markets Puhoi had established.
"[Puhoi] gives us the ability to manufacture feta and blue cheeses which we didn't have previously."
Mr den Haring said Puhoi shareholders saw the benefits of having a "strong parent organisation" for support in the competitive domestic market and to help them through an anticipated period of export growth.
Puhoi Valley Cheeses employs 65 staff and has a $10 million turnover from a number of specialty cheeses, including Bouton d'Or.
The merger is expected to be completed by early next year.
While there was no guarantee written into the deal that all Puhoi jobs would be retained, "we expect to be on quite an aggressive growth path for the next couple of years and for that we need good people," Mr den Haring said.
"So it's highly unlikely that there will be any major areas of redundancy. We run a pretty lean operation and so does Dairy Foods. It's really just a matter of putting the two together."
Mr den Haring will head the merged operation.
