Jacket still plans float soon

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 44

Jacket still plans float soon

By

SIMON LOUISSON,

in Wellington

Jacket Corporation still plans to go public in the new year despite a row with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research over the safety of some of its products. The D.S.LR. recently withdrew its claims that Jackel’s infant teats did not meet safety standards, and the company will receive considerable publicity at the department’s expense to rectify their mistake. Earlier this year the managing director, Mr Curtis, announced plans to expand Jackel International, now Jackel Corporation, but events including the D.S.I.R. investigation caused the company to delay its plans. “We were not so well organised, then the market went dead, then the D.S.I.R. came in, and now Christmas is on us. We’ll see what the market is like in the New Year, and we hope we’ll look at going public,” said Mr Curtis.

The company is an importer of toys and baby products including the Tommee Tippee range and also manufactures a number of the products at its Lower Hutt factory. . He said that the actions by the D.S.LR. causing the three Tommee Tippee products and a Nuk latex pacifier to be withdrawn from the market because they had unacceptably high levels of cancer-causing nitrosamine had caused major damage during the past couple of months. But he acknowledged that it affected only 5 per cent of Tommee Tippee sales which accounted for 26 per cent of total sales, and the publicity was likely to increase over-, all sales. Jackel is planning to replace the controversial latex teats with liquid-silicon teats. The change has not been brought about by the D.S.I.R. action but is a marketing action.