Ice-cream stick deal

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33051, 19 October 1972, Page 18

Ice-cream stick deal

CN.Z. Pres* Association) AUCKLAND, Oct. 18. Carter Holt Holdings, Ltd, Auckland-based timber merchant, is on the brink of completing a joint venture deal with an Australian firm whose main product is icecream sticks. The firm is O. R. Beddison Proprietary, Ltd, of Nagwarry, near Mount Gambier, in South Australia. Beddison makes all the millions of ice-cream sticks used in the Australian market. But recently it began looking for more supplies of suitable wood—strong, and relatively free of taste. The firm came to New Zealand recently because of the country’s supplies of radiata pine. They were also looking for a partner, and negotiations are almost completed with Carter Holt.

The two companies will trade through a subsidiary, E. and J. Pardon, Ltd, and the industry will be based at Taupo. The joint-venture project will be to produce ice-cream sticks, coffee stirrers and medical spatulas to the Australian, near Pacific, Malaysian and even the United States markets. They are also eyeing the Japanese and South American markets. “We are aiming to start things rolling in March or April of next year,” Mr R. H. A. Carter, joint managing director of Carter Holt Holdings, saidtoday;