Essay About Hubbard Foods Market Share And Cereal Maker Hubbard Foods

Crunch Time for Cereal Maker
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ROB ONEILL
Crunch time for cereal maker
Last updated 05:00 17/07/2011
Rivals are eating into Hubbard Foods market share, writes Rob ONeill.
Breakfast cereal maker Hubbard Foods is finding the going tough, falling into the red by $1.09 million for the year to March
It has also emerged that Hubbard chief executive Doug Paulin has left and a search is under way to find a replacement.
Paulin has joined fishing company Sealord as general manager of New Zealand fish.
Hubbard is a private company and as such does not release its financial results. But in December 2009, the Rotorua
Energy Charitable Trust bought a 35% stake in the company for just over $5m and records the companys contributions in
its accounts.
This year that was a loss of $388,478, putting Hubbards total loss for the year at just over $1m.
Hubbard does not disclose its total sales numbers, but market data from Synovate posted on the companys website claims
a market share of 9.3% at November 14 last year. That is 0.1% down on figures published on the site last year which in
turn were down from 11.3% reported in 2007.
At that time, total sales were reported as $38.5m, producing a profit before tax of $1.5m.
Hubbard has a different balance date to the Rotorua Trust, so the figures for the year are based on unaudited management
accounts, the trusts annual report says.
Meanwhile, Hubbards rivals for the New Zealand breakfast bowl appear to be gaining market share.
These include Sanitarium (a charity owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church) and international giant Kellogg.
Sanitariums numbers are wrapped up in those of the churchs New Zealand Conference Association charity, but are
believed to provide the bulk of the charitys trading revenue. In the year to June 30, sales increased substantially from
$70.7m to $82.6m, while expenses from “nutrition, wellbeing and health food activities” rose from $62.6m in 2009 to
$74.2m.
With Kellogg recording a small increase in sales locally from $45.8m to $47m – matched by