{"id":921683,"date":"2026-10-09T09:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921683\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T09:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:46:13","slug":"mundella-yoghurt-returns-to-shelves-as-deal-revives-collapsed-wa-dairy-brands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921683\/","title":{"rendered":"Mundella yoghurt returns to shelves as deal revives collapsed WA dairy brands"},"content":{"rendered":"

A late rescue deal and sale is set to keep two landmark West Australian dairy brands on supermarket shelves.<\/p>\n

Mundella Foods and the Margaret River Dairy Company went into liquidation<\/a> in August, with creditors owed millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Local processor Artisanal Market has bought the brands and assets, including processing facilities in Perth and Margaret River, for an undisclosed sum.<\/p>\n

\"Building<\/p>\n

Mundella Foods’ operations near Mundigjong will not be used for processing by the new owners. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)<\/p>\n

Artisanal Market managing director Kevin Sorgiovanni founded another well-known WA dairy and juice brand, Harvey Fresh.<\/p>\n

He said he had been interested in buying the companies back in 2023, when they were sold by Chinese-owned Manassen Foods to The Cheeky Cow, which has since collapsed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It hasn’t been an easy road,” Mr Sorgiovanni said.<\/p>\n

“We saw the Mundella and Margaret River business as a great opportunity for the South West and also to add some value back to the WA dairy market.”<\/p>\n

Mr Sorgiovanni said both brands of yoghurt would be manufactured at the export-approved Metricup processing facility near Margaret River.<\/p>\n

Artisanal Markets will mothball Mundella’s original manufacturing facility at Mundijong, near Perth, because of its poor condition.<\/p>\n

Overseas sales a goal<\/p>\n

Artisanal Markets is jointly owned by PenAgri Group and Research Corporation.<\/p>\n

Mr Sorgiovanni told the ABC the new ownership had plans to target the Asian market for broader sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

There are hopes to export Mundella yoghurt to Asia. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)<\/p>\n

“We want to do more than just the WA market,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But, firstly, what’s really important is to get Mundella back onto the WA shelves here locally.”<\/p>\n

Mr Sorgiovanni said production at the Metricup facility would start at 2 million litres a year, but it had the capacity for 10 million litres.<\/p>\n

Positive news for farmers<\/p>\n

The revival is welcome news for dairy farmers across southern WA, but challenges remain.<\/p>\n

WA Farmers Dairy Council president Ian Noakes said he was keen to see how Artisanal Market would secure milk supply.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Ian Noakes has welcomed the sale. (ABC South West WA: Anthony Pancia)<\/p>\n

“Most of the milk in WA is contracted, and the main companies are not very good at letting a bit of milk go to somebody else,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“So it would be a matter of waiting probably until somebody comes out of contract to get a milk supply.”<\/p>\n

Mr Noakes hoped the additional competition would improve the price points for local dairy farmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A late rescue deal and sale is set to keep two landmark West Australian dairy brands on supermarket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[489506,64,63,99,489501,489503,489498,489500,489499,489504,489505,489502],"class_list":["post-921683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-artisanal-market","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-margaret-river-dairy-company","tag-mundaella-youghurt","tag-mundella","tag-mundella-dairy","tag-mundella-yogurt","tag-wa-cheese","tag-wa-dairy-products","tag-wa-yoghurt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}