Today marks a milestone in New Zealand’s food importing history – the establishment of Goodfood Group Ltd.
Bringing together the Bluerock, Sulkem and Pacific Supplies businesses under one name, the Goodfood Group brand launches this week.
The three business entities being brought together under the Goodfood Group name are Bluerock, which owns the Food Snob brand of specialty cheeses and antipasti, and the Veesey dairy-free cheese brand, and represents other consumer brands like Flora spreads and Rana pasta; Sulkem, which imports food and beverage ingredients; and Pacific Supplies, a distributor of a range of specialty food products in New Zealand.
The company’s origins began in the early 1900s with Sir William Goodfellow, a pioneer in New Zealand’s dairy industry. Over many years the family business established itself as a major player in New Zealand’s food import and export industries. The fourth generation of the Goodfellow family are still the company owners today.
The newly launched Goodfood Group name pays homage to the ‘Good’ in Goodfellow, and reflects the heritage, values, purpose and mission of the company. This, according to Chief Executive Officer, Mark Prenter, is all about the concepts of ‘good food’ and ‘family’.
He says the move is one of the biggest step changes in the company’s history, and recognises the legacies left by Sir William Goodfellow, his son Douglas Goodfellow, and more recently, his grandson Bruce Goodfellow, who expanded the Amalgamated Dairies family business into new areas.
“Thanks to their vision, we are a growing, full service, multi-channel food business, and our new company-wide brand aligns to our growth strategy. Not only was having so many different brands confusing to our customers, internally we wanted to be more cohesive under one company name. With a number of our staff operating remotely through the pandemic, it became even more important to us to have one brand that united us and reflected who we are. I believe that the change to Goodfood Group will benefit how we work overall. We are not only streamlining our back end operations and our external communications – we are ultimately enhancing how we develop our culture as a company.”
Prenter says the new name honours both the business’ heritage while also focusing on how it can continue to grow.
“We have a long history within the food industry in New Zealand, weathering many storms. The ‘Goodfood Group’ name reflects and builds upon the proud heritage of the Goodfellow family and its place in New Zealand’s food industry history. ‘Good’ links to our heritage and is a tribute to our founders, while ‘food’ states the business that we are in, and unifies the three different brands being brought together. The new brand name involves us unveiling a new company logo, which also speaks to our values, heritage, purpose and mission, alongside our new tagline – Family & Food for the Future. This all provides us with a strong platform for growth.”
Goodfood Group signage and branding will be implemented from this week. Going forward all company communications will be under the Goodfood Group name.
