Australia's Farm Pride Foods to stay in Egg Business - MELBOURNE - Farm Pride Foods Ltd, which was heading out of the egg business a few months ago, forged closer links with egg producers on Monday.

Farm Pride said Monday it had acquired a stake in a large Victorian poultry farm as well as aligning itself with a substantial group of Victorian egg farmers.

It is also teaming up with marketing group Novo Foods Foods Ltd to focus on a national business platform.

The market liked the initiatives, pushing Farm Pride shares seven cents higher to 51 cents.

It was a drastic change of tact for Farm Pride which tried to offload its egg business in April and build up its snack food division Golden Days.

But the egg farmer's shareholders rejected the proposal resulting in a board shake-up including bringing in a new chairman and chief executive.

Today Farm Pride said it was aligning itself with a substantial group of Victorian egg farmers as well as shifting its focus to a national business platform, compared to the traditional regional or Victorian focused platform.

Farm Pride has entered into an agreement with Novo, a national marketing joint venture company established in 1999 to market shell eggs to national retail customers and supermarket chains.

Its members include the Western Australian Egg Marketing Board, NSW Egg Producers Co-op Ltd and Pure Foods Eggs Pty Ltd.

Farm Pride estimated that the combined turnover of the new Farm Pride Marketing Group would be A$85 million (US$57 million) compared to the existing turnover of the company's retail egg business of $22 million.

Farm Pride said the purchase of an interest in the central Victorian poultry farm provided the company with greater security of supply and gave it the opportunity to jointly construct and operate a new state of the art egg production facility.

Source: Asia Pulse Businesswire via Comtex - 23rd September 2003