Wattie group moves

Press, 27 September 1983, Page 20

Wattie group moves

A reorganisation of management within the Wattie Industries, Ltd, will be intended to strengthen the group’s competitiveness. Wattie’s managing director, Mr J. O. Haworth, said the group, New Zealand’s bigest food processor, would be organised into four main divisions, each with an executive director. Mr R. K. Wattie would head consumer foods, Mr C. S. Lyon would head investment and finance and Mr R. C. Fyfe, the cereal milling and poultry, and the administration divisions.

This will replace the three present sectors around J. Wattie Canneries, Ltd, General Foods Corporation and Cropper NRM.

Mr Haworth said the changes did not indicate any Eroblems being experienced y the group, but rather a move to “meet increasing pressure in the food trade”. It was the first time the group had looked at itself since the late 1960 s when J. Wattie Canneries and the two other big firms merged, he said.

The changes resulted from a three month study by McKinsey and Company, America’s biggest management consultant.

The reorganisation would not mean the movement of any operations and would make little difference to consumers he said.