Dalgety moving up in California

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 24

Dalgety moving up in California

By

JOHN N. HUTCHISON

San Francisco Dalgety is not the familiar name in California that it is in New Zealand but from a modest start with the purchase of an old San Francisco trading firm in 1966 it has driven forward into a powerful position in American commerce. The Br i t i s h-based group’s American holding company, Dalgety, Incorporated, is running its several subsidiaries from suburban headquarters near San Francisco, has acquired another which is expected to more than quadruple the annual revenue of the group and may eventually offer some new opportunities for New Zealand food exporters. Dalgety, Inc., has bought, for between S3SM and S4OM, the Martin-Brower Company, a food and restaurant "supply distributor. Martin-Brower’s biggest customer is McDonald’s, the American chain of thousands of fast-food restaurants. McDonald’s uses huge quantities of manu-facturing-grade beef, much of it from Australia and New Zealand. Another Dalgety company in California is already an important distributor for New Zealand steel. The Martin-Brower deal would permit Dalgety to expand rapidly into the food-distribution trade, said Mr Peter Gardiner, the Edinburgh-born president of Dalgety, Inc. The development might have potential advantages for New Zealand food" exporters in that it could link them closer with the American consumer trade. “As the work becomes smaller, the commodity system is expanding and many international com-

modity traders will change their procurement functions,” said Mr Gardiner. “With the purchase of Martin-Brower we are now firmly based in the commodity food system.” The acquisition of Mar-tin-Brower is expected to rocket Dalgety. Inc., from its present position at the bottom of the 'lOO leading internationally owned American companies to thirtieth in rank in terms of annual revenue. Last year the group had revenues of SI64M. MartinBrower’s were S7OOM, Dalgety,lnc., projects SIOOOM for 1982. The California company was incorporated in 1966 to acquire Balfour, Guthrie, and Company, a San Francisco trading firm founded in 1869. In 1974, the new enterprise bought out a leading supplier of frozen vegetables and a large fresh and frozen-fish firm. In 1977 and 1978, Dalgety, Inc., added two more companies — one engaged in processing frozen fruit and vegetables, and the other the largest United States processor of frozen strawberries for

private label, now marketing 32M pounds of berries annually. The burgeoning Dalgety business organised into food, trading, grain, and transportation divisions under various corporate entities, is now the second largest processor of frozen fruits and vegetables and a major United States trader in seafood, grain, fats, edible oils, and other commodities. It is the largest single .supplier of cold-finished steel bar for the United States screw-machine industry and the leading West Coast importer of carbon arid alloy grades of steel and wire. Through Balfour, Guthrie, and Company, Dalgety last year imported New Zealand steel valued at S7M: galvanised coil and sheet from New Zealand Steel, wire rod from Pacific Steel, and wire from New Zealand Wire. A Dalgety spokesman indicated that the demand for such products exceeded the supply capability of the New Zealand steel companies.