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Entrepreneur Irene Falcone has ruled out buying beauty e-commerce platform Nourished Life, which she founded in 2011, back from collapsed cosmetics empire BWX, which has listed Nourished Life and another online retailer for sale.

Falcone founded Nourished Life as a blog before it became an online marketplace dedicated to natural and clean beauty products, and sold it to BWX in 2017 for $20 million.

However, the troubled parent company is now seeking buyers for Nourished Life and eco-friendly marketplace Flora & Fauna in a move that will swiftly shrink its stable of brands, while it also scrambles to offload its stake in celebrity cosmetic lines Go-To Skincare and Purely Byron.

But Falcone said BWX had done such a poor job of operating Nourished Life that she would not consider repurchasing the platform, a move that would have echoed make-up mogul Zoe Foster Blake’s pole position to buy Go-To Skincare back at a bargain-basement price.

“When you shopped at Nourished Life, you knew every single ingredient was clean, checked, had complied with this amazing matrix of ingredients policies. Since I left, I’ve seen ... a whole bunch of rubbish there,” she said. “Why would I pay money for it?”

“I wouldn’t want to buy it back for that reason. It’s just tarnished now.”

KPMG’s David Hardy, Gayle Dickerson, James Stewart and James Dampney have been appointed as receivers and managers handling the day-to-day operations of Nourished Life and Flora & Fauna, together known as BWX Digital. They are now eliciting “urgent expressions of interest to acquire or recapitalise” the platforms’ assets and operations.

“BWX Digital comprises Nourished Life and Flora & Fauna, two of Australia’s leading e-commerce platforms operating multi-category portfolios of eco-friendly, natural and organic, toxin-free, health, wellbeing and lifestyle products,” KPMG said in a statement.

The sale of the e-commerce platforms marks the third and fourth business that BWX, itself in voluntary administration, is offloading following the high-profile and likely return of Go-To to Zoe Foster Blake, and the collapse of Elsa Pataky-founded cosmetics line Purely Byron in March. BWX owns 47 per cent of Purely Byron, which has appointed administrators to find a new owner.

BWX’s remaining brands are Sukin, Andalou and Mineral Fusion, the first two of which are sold through pharmacy and supermarket retailers Priceline, Woolworths and Coles.

“BWX Digital is also in voluntary administration, meaning interested parties can consider a sale as a going concern, a recapitalisation or restructuring of the business through a Deed of Company Arrangement [DOCA],” KPMG’s statement said.

Spanning skincare, make-up, eco-friendly home and baby products, food, health and pet merchandise, Nourished Life and Flora & Fauna sell a combined 590 brands and nearly 13,000 products, and together made net sales of $32.5 million in the 2022 financial year. The brands have a combined 115,000 customers considered “active” and 337,000 loyalty program members.

The hasty sales process will last for barely 48 hours, with expressions of interest closing at 5pm on Friday.

The two sites appear to have ceased trading – customers have been barred from making purchases and the checkout process has been blocked.

“We’re sorry but our checkout page is currently unavailable. We are working to get it back up and running as quickly as possible,” says a banner on Nourished Life’s website. “If you need anything else from us, please contact our lovely customer care team.”

The Flora & Fauna website permits users to add items to their shopping cart, but posts a similar message when attempting to check out.

“Checkout currently unavailable,” users are told. “In the meantime, please feel free to continue browsing our website and adding items to your cart or wishlist. Rest assured that your items will be waiting for you when our checkout page is back online.

“Keep an eye on the main page for updates. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time, and we hope you have a lovely day!”

Some social media users have posted comments under Nourished Life’s latest Instagram post querying when the checkout process will recommence.

While KPMG have been appointed manager and receivers of the two platforms, representing secured creditors, FTI Consulting have been appointed by the BWX board as administrators.

Coles and Uber Eats have teamed up to launch what they say is Australia’s largest on-demand grocery-delivery service, operating within the Uber Eats app.

Customers in Melbourne will be the first to be able to buy Coles’ products via the Uber Eats app from nearly 40 locations. During the upcoming months, the retailer will extend the service to 500 stores across the country.

To use the service, customers need to tap the ‘Grocery’ button in the app and select from a range of groceries, including fresh meat, dairy and pantry staples. Delivery progress can be tracked in real-time.

Orders placed on the app will be packed and delivered by a delivery person using the platform.

Coles’ GM of digital operations & ventures, Claire Pallot, said the partnership offers “a fast, reliable, and affordable option” for getting fresh produce and groceries delivered.

“Customers can continue to enjoy great value and quality produce they find at Coles, but with the convenience of on-demand delivery through Uber Eats.”

Lucas Groeneveld, Uber Eats’ regional GM of retail for ANZ, said the expansion will “supercharge” the variety of groceries already available on the app.

Online customers will also benefit from a last-mile delivery option from Coles’ Liquorland which will be rolled out in the coming months.

The Australian business of the global Mars conglomerate has increased sales of its chocolate bars by about 18 per cent since 2020, and expects a new paper-based wrapper for the flagship Mars bar to add momentum.

The paper-based wrapper on the product is being rolled out through supermarkets led by Woolworths and Coles, and petrol and convenience store outlets, with Australia a pioneer ahead of similar moves in the rest of the Mars empire.

Mars is one of the world’s largest consumer companies. It is privately owned by the US-based Mars family and generates annual sales of $US45 billion ($66.3 billion).

Mars Wrigley Australia chief financial officer Duncan Webster said the group’s Ballarat factory in country Victoria, which produces about 88 million chocolate bars annually, had been the focus of heavy investment to bring about the change. He said the shift away from plastic-based wrappers would remove about 360 tonnes of plastic from the product’s supply chain. “It’s the first in the Mars world,” he said.

Mr Webster said it was too early to tell whether inflation in raw material inputs in Australia had moved past its peak.

“It’s really difficult to actually call that,” he said. There were many moving parts in the supply chain and still too much uncertainty about inflationary aspects. Mars Wrigley also operates a factory at Asquith, in the outer northern suburbs of Sydney, that makes chewing gum and mints.

Mr Webster declined to forecast where the company thought official interest rates might be headed in Australia, but said the chocolate bar and confectionery market in Australia was historically resilient in economic downturns. People still wanted a small “treat” in tougher times. “Our products are still very much seen as a treat,” he said.

The Ballarat plant, which employs about 400 people, has had almost $100 million of upgrades and capital spending in the past three years. The shift to paper-based wrappers was just a small component of that.

Back to the future

The plant makes three big chocolate bar brands. Mars is the biggest seller which 42 million bars sold annually in Australia, followed by Snickers with 36 million and Milky Way with almost 10 million. Production has lifted by 18 per cent from 2020 when the group sold about 74 million bars.

Mr Webster said supermarket sales make up a substantial chunk of sales in Australia, while sales in the “on the go” segment in petrol stations and convenience stores was also an important market.

There is also a “back to the future” element to the wrapper change; the original Mars bars which hit the market in the 1930s had paper wrappers. Packaging giant Amcor has worked with Mars Wrigley for almost three years on the development of the new paper wrappers.

The Mars business also has a large pet care and pet food business in Australia with brands including Pedigree, Whiskas and Purina.

The Mars businesses in Australia produced annual revenues of $1.68 billion in 2021, its latest set of financial statements lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show. This compared with $1.66 billion in the previous year. The Mars group in Australia made a profit after tax of $136 million in 2021, up from $107 million.

Mr Webster said the position of chief financial officer across the corporate sector was increasingly becoming more broad, and had shifted away from being a “number cruncher” compared with two decades ago.

“You’ve got a unique position to be an enabler,” he said. While CFOs still made hard financial decisions, they had substantial strategic input across the group.

Fast food operator Restaurant Brands says it is pushing through price increases at stores around the globe as inflation continues to eat into margins at its KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell franchises.

The Auckland-based business, which runs more than 480 food outlets across Australia, New Zealand and the US, told investors on Monday that first-quarter sales were up by 12 per cent to $NZ308.6 million ($461.3m) compared with the same time last year.

The fast food giant’s sales growth was backstopped by price increases in some markets and by the addition of 12 new stores across the group’s network. At the same time, the business warned that inflation was still having an impact on its bottom line.

“Worldwide inflationary pressures continue, albeit at a lower rate. While the company continues to implement price increases in response to these increased costs, margins remain under pressure,” the company said in an update filed to the ASX.

Restaurant Brands runs KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Carl’s Jnr in New Zealand, as well as KFC and Taco Bell stores in Australia and Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in the United States.

The group’s New Zealand stores had a 9.2 per cent jump in sales to $NZ129.4 million, driven by price increases and easing of pandemic-related restrictions in NZ last year.

Sales in Australia were up by 15.5 per cent to $67.9 million, as sales in shopping centres and inner-city locations recovered to close to where they were pre-COVID.

Stores in California were weaker, declining by 4 per cent on a same-store basis for the quarter due to customers being more conservative with their spending, and “shifting to value-oriented menu and promotional items”, the company said.

Analysts have been cautious on quick-service food retail over the past few months over fears that consumers are eating out less and trading some of their fast food spending for making meals at home.

Shares in pizza giant Domino’s have declined by close to 22 per cent year-to-date, with the stock plunging in February after the company revealed it didn’t get the balance right when it increased the price of menu items in the face of inflationary pressures.

The most recent grocery price tracking data from investment bank UBS shows that while the price of many common fast-food ingredients is normalising, products still cost about 10 per cent more than at the same time last year.

Dairy product prices jumped 17 per cent in the March quarter compared with the prior corresponding period, while chicken prices were up 14 per cent and beef up by 2 per cent compared with the March quarter in 2022.

Australian Bureau of Statistics retail spending figures suggest that while retail spending has been flat at the start of this year, food spending has continued to grow steadily. Australian consumers spent $13.8 billion on food retail in February 2023, up 0.2 per cent compared with January.

Restaurant Brands shares closed the trading day flat at $6.38.

Aldi is counting on shoppers returning to the German discounter as the rising cost of living pushes Australians to its more affordable grocery range, and suppliers begin to reduce the frequency of price increases.

The discount supermarket aims to be between 15 per cent and 25 per cent cheaper than larger rivals Coles and Woolworths but, like them, its prices have been forced up by producers and wholesalers across the board.

Last year there were more than 2000 out-of-cycle price increases, but the rate of supplier requests has slowed, and some cost inputs are normalising, Aldi managing director for commercial and buying Jordan Lack told The Australian Financial Review.

The 2000 price increases “is far and away the highest rate we’ve ever seen”. “Some of those cost inputs are definitely normalising,” he said.

“The international freight rates have definitely come back significantly over the last three months. So, there’s some internationally sourced products where there’s some benefit.

“But, unfortunately, there’s cost increases which are still coming through on some commodities and other factors. I think it’s going to be a bit of a category-by-category proposition over the next bit of time.”

He confirmed research by UBS that found fresh food price inflation is volatile, and susceptible to weather events which could squeeze supply.

Mr Lack would not disclose top-line sales in the last quarter of 2022, but said they were up 13.2 per cent year-on-year, driven by changing customer behaviour, as customers switched some or all of their spend to Aldi from other retailers and existing shoppers upped their basket size.

Aldi’s retail prices rose by about 7.8 per cent on average last year, with its cost inflation sitting at about 9.2 per cent. Mr Lack said this showed Aldi was absorbing some of those prices hikes.

That is in line with 7.7 per cent food inflation at Woolworths, and 7.4 per cent at Coles in the December half.

Asked if that implied the estimated profit margin was around 8 per cent last year, Mr Lack said that was “wildly inaccurate”, and less than half that figure.

“I think our profits will be below that of our competitors as well,” he said. “We have shareholders which have a really long-term view to the business. And that allows us through the good times, and the bad, to make sure that we set our business up for sustainable growth in the future.”

Mr Lack said IRI market data showed Aldi had about 9.5 per cent market share, achieving a 1 per cent gain over the past 12 months. Aldi’s share plateaued at about 10 per cent to 12 per cent before the pandemic struck.

Its business was tested by COVID-19 and international shipping challenges. Consumers also sought convenience over price, and favoured neighbourhood stores over frequenting shopping centres during that period.

But Mr Lack said more shoppers were coming to Aldi more frequently, estimating a cumulative $3.1 billion in annual savings.

“Those customers who are more loyal customers are shopping more, buying more with us seeking out value,” he said.

An average family of four that shopped at Aldi saved about $2400 a year on their grocery bill, according to PwC data. The PwC analysis looked at the price gap between Aldi and competitors using Aldi’s internal price data and the retailer price comparisons for major competitors.

Aldi has 580 stores in Australia and has pushed into Western Australia and South Australia. It also operates a corner-store format in inner-city locations.

Mr Lack said Aldi planned to add to its network in coming years, including “experimentation with the corner-store format”, and refurbishing existing sites, but had no plans to bring the US-based Trader Joe’s brand to Australia.

Local boss Tom Daunt will be elevated to global joint managing director of the German supermarket business next month. The Australian operation will be led by Anna McGrath and Marietta Schorn.

Woolworths has axed 51 local jobs in its exports business which is expected to be closed by June 30 after difficulties regaining momentum following the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The nation’s largest supermarket retailer was shipping own-brand products, some fresh food items and small volumes of meat to wholesale partners in key markets of Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. It also sells in other countries.

Woolworths International is part of B2B Food, a division of Woolworths’ Australian B2B business. A Woolworths spokesman confirmed the closure and said it was flagged internally to the team in February.

The closure is expected to be complete by June 30. “While we have built a business partnering with major retailers and distributors in overseas markets, ongoing geopolitical issues, COVID-19 and supply chain disruptions materially impacted [the business],” he said.

The closure of Woolworths International means 51 staff will go, predominantly in Australia, and staff have already been offered jobs in other areas or redundancies.

Woolworths’ stand-alone red meat wholesale business, known as GreenStock, remains in place and still operates within the B2B Food unit.

The export business is challenged in the wider grocery sector. After a decade, British retailer Tesco abandoned its own-brand exports in 2021 due to poor performance, lack of stock availability and compromised supply chain. Sainsbury’s followed last year.

While the war in Ukraine and COVID-19 played havoc with global supply chains, that situation has since eased. Average food prices paid by consumers Coles and Woolworths have started to fall slightly in February, with prices of fresh produce falling faster than packaged goods, according to the latest grocery price tracker published by analysts at UBS.

Coles will bring processing of its private label milk in-house in a move described as a significant shift in Australia’s dairy landscape as major supermarkets seek to carve out secure supplies of milk from a pool of producers that has been dwindling for decades.

The supermarket giant said on Monday it has asked for formal approval from the competition watchdog to buy two milk-processing facilities from Canadian-owned Saputo Dairy Australia for $105 million.

The two facilities, one in Victoria’s Laverton North and the other in NSW’s Erskine Park, process about 225 million litres a year, 80 per cent of which is bottled as Coles’ two- and three-litre private-label milk.

The move will strengthen resilience in Coles’ milk supply chain and improve security of milk supply, said Coles chief executive Steven Cain, who described the facilities as state of the art and delivering exceptional production efficiency.

“These facilities also have sufficient capacity to facilitate further growth opportunities through new product innovation,” said Cain.

Saputo, which produces dairy products including Devondale, Cheer, Mersey Valley and Cracker Barrell, is Australia’s largest dairy processor. As part of the agreement, Saputo will continue processing its milk products at the two manufacturing facilities.

The announcement is expected to have little impact on customers. However, Rabobank senior dairy analyst Michael Harvey said the supermarket’s move to own the milk processing facilities was significant.

“Change of ownership of assets is a significant event, and a retailer going direct to buy milk and now process it themselves is transformational for Australia,” Harvey said.

The acquisition will give Coles more control over its milk supply, room to innovate and potentially reduce overhead costs, he said.

Australian milk production has declined from over 11,000 million litres in 2001 to just over 8000 million litres a year and is forecast to keep falling amid high farmgate prices, costs of production, long hours, and prices that were kept low for a long time.

The smaller milk pool puts pressure on major dairy processing facilities like Saputo, Harvey said. “All the companies are looking at their network and making adjustments to new reality of not having as much milk for manufacturing.”

ANZ head of agribusiness insights Michael Whitehead said the acquisition is well-placed to benefit the supermarket giant. “The [milk production facilities] are some of the most modern processing plants in Australia, so that means they require less labour, which is very good in this day and age,” he said.

It complements a trend of retailers and supermarkets around the world bringing more pieces of their supply chain into the fold, such as meat processing and wine, Whitehead said.

“In this reasonably rapidly shrinking national pool of milk, supermarkets are looking to do what they can to tie up as much as they can.”

The two sites’ 48 employees will receive offers to transfer their employment to Coles. Existing relationships with farmers will not be affected by the acquisition.

Saputo Dairy put the two processing facilities up for sale in order to “further optimise its operating model”, the company said in a statement.

“As the Australian dairy industry landscape continues to evolve, this proactive measure aims to further adapt [Saputo’s] manufacturing network and is designed to strengthen our market competitiveness,” said Saputo international chief operating officer Leanne Cutts.

Saputo founder, president and chief executive Lino Saputo said the company wanted to strengthen its position as a high quality, low-cost processor.

“This marks an important step in executing our long-term vision for success in Australia as we maintain a sharp focus on efficiency to ensure we maximise the return on every litre of milk,” Saputo said in a statement.

The acquisition is subject to approval from competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and is expected to be completed later this year.

In 2018, the ACCC expressed concerns about Saputo’s attempt to purchase Murray Goulburn, which produces Devondale, that ended up going ahead in $1.3 billion deal. Saputo then offered to divest the Koroit plant, which allayed the commission’s competition concerns.

Both Coles and Woolworths raised prices of its private label milk products last year to cover rising farmgate prices and mounting supply chain costs.

While food inflation rose by 9.2 per cent over 2022, dairy prices rose the most, exceeding 14 per cent.

Wellness and beauty retailer BWX’s Australian operations have been placed in voluntary administration as the company struggles to combat inventory and working capital issues.
 

This afternoon, David Hardy, Gayle Dickerson, James Stewart and James Dampney of KPMG were appointed as receivers. They will take over the day-to-day operations of the company, which will continue to trade normally while its future viability is assessed.

That followed the appointment of Kate Warwick, Joe Hansell and Kelly Trenfield of management consulting firm FTI Consulting as administrators, earlier in the day. They intend to continue the directors’ search for a buyer for BWX’s stake in skincare brand Go-To which is a separate business and not under administration.In an ASX statement, the company said a “range of issues have continued to impact the Australian operations of BWX – including customer destocking and inventory and working capital issues” – necessitating the appointment of administrators.

“The directors believe entering voluntary administration will help progress the restructuring process already underway with new management at BWX and give the company the best chance of future profitability.

The company’s operations outside Australia and the Go-To business – in which BWX has a stake – will not be affected by this decision.

Last week, the company sought an “immediate suspension” from the trading of its shares on the ASX to focus on refinancing the business and continue to function.

Melbourne-based skincare group Aesop has been offloaded by its Brazilian parent, Natura & Co, to global giant L’Oreal in a deal that values the Australian-founded company at $US2.53 billion ($3.7 billion), including debt.

The deal, the largest for any luxury brand in Australia, is tipped to close in the third quarter of 2023.

“Aesop taps into all of today’s ascending currents and L’Oreal will contribute to unleash its massive growth potential, notably in China and travel retail,” L’Oreal chief executive Nicolas Hieronimus said in a statement.

Aesop, which uses plant-based ingredients for its skin, hair and body products, was the smallest division inside Natura, but had the highest profit margin, approaching 25 per cent. The brand posted sales of $US537 million in fiscal 2022. In its latest quarterly results in March, Aesop posted more than 18 per cent revenue growth.

The all-cash sale will allow Natura to deleverage its balance sheet and focus on its Avon brand and steady improvement of The Body Shop business, Natura said in a statement on Tuesday. It said it entered a binding agreement with the buyer on April 3.

Melbourne hairdresser Dennis Paphitis founded Aesop in 1987 after growing frustrated with the products on offer at that time. He worked with a Los Angeles chemist, using essential oils to create haircare products, before moving on to skin and body.

He and former fellow owner Harbert Private Equity sold 65 per cent of the business to Natura for $68 million in 2012. The Brazilian company bought the rest for an undisclosed figure in 2016.

Mr Paphitis was well ahead of his time, spending more money on developing the product than on its packaging, which today is easily recognised with distinctive brown bottles with cream and black labelling.

Global super brand

All Aesop products are manufactured in Australia except its shaving accessories which are made in England and Japan, and its fragrance and room spray ranges which are manufactured in France.

In the new Collingwood HQ there is a laboratory upstairs and eventually there will be room for the company’s 300 Australian office-based employees (another 350 work in retail).

Aesop has evolved into a global super brand available across luxury retail, beauty, and hotels and restaurants. It operates about 400 points of sale across the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. The group opened its first store in China last year.

In October, the Sao Paulo-listed conglomerate said it was looking to sell the business or potentially spin it off via an initial public offering.

Natura chief financial officer Guilherme Castellan said on a call to investors last month the entry into the Chinese market exceeded expectations and its two stores there were already the top two sellers among the brand’s 287 signature stores worldwide.

After the sale, Aesop will sit in L’Oreal’s Luxe portfolio, with Youth to the People, an American skincare company based in California, which was purchased in 2021.

Cyril Chapuy, the president of L’Oreal Luxe, said Aesop chief executive Michael O’Keeffe and his teams would join L’Oreal and continue to grow the brand. London-based Mr O’Keeffe has been CEO of Aesop since 2003.

“We have great confidence that this strategic acquisition will join the L’Oreal Luxe Billionaire brands club and therefore contribute significantly to the growth of the division in the years to come,” he said.

Aesop was increasingly seen by investors as the crown jewel in Natura, whose other businesses including Avon and The Body Shop expanded at a slower pace.

In a survey with 32 local and foreign investors ahead of the transaction, Banco Bradesco BBI said most of its clients expected Natura to sell 100 per cent of Aesop for between $US2 billion and $US2.5 billion.

Bank of America and Morgan Stanley worked with Natura in the sale.

L’Oreal has been beefing up its development of plant-based technology for beauty products. About a year ago, it invested in a venture led by biotech Geno to create sustainable alternatives to key ingredients in beauty products. L’Oreal was a founding member of the venture alongside Unilever and Kao.

Country boy and once promising Australian rules footballer Tom Daunt has been appointed the new boss of global supermarkets giant Aldi, making him the first Australian to hold the role.

Tom Daunt, the local boss of German supermarket chain Aldi, will take on the top job managing the retail giant’s global operations spanning Australia, North America, Europe and Asia.

Mr Daunt, a once promising Australian rules football player, will take over as the boss of Aldi South from May 1, which makes up half the Aldi global empire owned by the highly secretive Albrecht family.

It hands him responsibility for tens of billions of dollars in supermarket revenue from Australia, China, the US, Britain, Ireland, Slovenia, Hungary, Germany, Belgium and other parts of Europe including more than 120,000 employees.

Mr Daunt was appointed the boss of Aldi in Australia in 2015 and has grown the local German discount chain rapidly to be a third force in the local $100bn supermarket sector with market share of around 15 per cent and quickly growing its store base to more than 500 stores.

It is the first time an Australian has been placed in charge of one of the Albrecht family’s Aldi global operations, the competing South or North arms, and is a huge elevation for the local Australian Aldi boss who will now move with some of his family to Austria where Aldi South has its holding company based.

Mr Daunt joined Aldi in 1998 at the age of 25 and spent more than five years in the UK – first as an area manager and then as store operations director, running more than 60 outlets. He came back to Australia in 2004, setting up the Queensland business, and became MD for Aldi Australia eight years ago. In April 2015, he was named as CEO, Aldi Australia.

He studied logistics – rather than retail – at Victoria University and has a Master of Business from the University of Queensland.

He began working in logistics in the UK, and then migrated to store operations and merchandising as he rose through the Aldi ranks.

Aldi is considered to be among the top five biggest supermarket and grocery chain in the world with its Aldi South arm posting annual sales of more than $123bn, easily eclipsing the combined sales of Australia’s heavyweight supermarkets Woolworths and Coles.

Mr Daunt will have oversight of almost 7200 stores, including his Australian portfolio of 582 shops, with the bulk of those international stores in Germany, the USA and Britain.

As part of his promotion to the global role at Aldi South, also known as Aldi Sud, Mr Daunt will join the supermarket giant’s executive board and co-lead with current Aldi South chairman Thomas Ziegler.

Anna McGrath and Marietta Schorn will co-lead the Aldi Australia business in the years ahead.

Ms McGrath is a 17-year veteran of Aldi Australia and has held various senior positions, including serving as group managing director in both its US and Australian businesses over the last five years.

Ms Schorn is currently serving as group managing director in its Austrian business, and will relocate to Australia to join Ms McGrath in leading that business.

The founding Albrecht family split the Aldi empire in the early 1960s over a fight over the sale of cigarettes, with one brother, Karl, believing the sale of tobacco would attract shoplifters and he formed his Aldi South division.

Aldi was seen as rather quirky when it first arrived in Australia in 2001. Australian shoppers didn’t quite know what to make of its strange and unknown chocolate brands, groceries stacked on pallets, and check-outs where staff rushed through groceries at lightning speed, forcing customers to pack their own bags at a manic pace.

Aldi charged money for its reusable bags from day one, almost two decades before Woolworths and Coles had to deal with the plastic bags saga this year.

Even Mr Daunt admitted that Aldi was initially viewed as kind of weird. Or worse, “cheap and nasty”.

“Originally, we started out … and we’re perceived as really unusual and very discount. Why would you go there?” he said.

“It’s cheap, it must be nasty. And that phrase with Australians rolls off the tongue, cheap and nasty. There’s a period where people have to come to understand that because it costs less, it doesn’t mean you trade quality. That’s the uniqueness of our business model,” Mr Daunt told The Australian in 2018.

A promising AFL footballer in his youth, towering at 198cm, Daunt still bears the scars of that sports journey, which ended when he snapped his anterior cruciate ligament. He has had 14 knee operations and seven years ago had a knee replacement. It’s no surprise, then, that his sporting passion now revolves around the golf course, where he has a competitive handicap of 10.5.