Arnott’s have been sold to a private equity firm and this means that there is very likely going to be product rationalisation. And that means the worst biscuit ever will finally meet with the murder it so richly deserves.
Obviously I am talking about the Orange Slice, otherwise known as the Inedible Ballast Of The Variety Assortment, the biscuit to which starving shipwreck victims would go “nah, I’m good.”
And GOAT’s own Talecia Vescio has previously opined on this important matter via her passionate piece entitled Orange Slices Are The Best Biscuit In The Pack And I Will Not Hear Anything To The Contrary.
And I have nothing but respect for my splendid colleague and her idiosyncratic tastes, but I would like to present a counterpoint via a thesis subtitled Orange Slices Are The Vomit Of Satan And Arnott’s Only Made Them As A Dare.
And that dare was “hey, I bet you can’t sell a biscuit that’s cardboard filled with wet chalk.”
So: KKR has gotten the OK to buy Campbell Soup Co’s international brands division, of which Arnott’s is a part, for $3 billion. So before you start complaining about how this means that classic Oz biscuit brands are not in Australian hands, be advised that’s been the case for twenty-two years.
The normal move for such companies is to look at the assets and IP, go “here are the profitable bits” and put the rest in the bin, and then sell the slimmed-down company on at a profit.
And, assuming that happens in this case, the Orange Slice has to be the first Arnott’s biscuit on the murder block, because it is the worst.
However, if you are on Team Taleicia, it’s time to start buying up big and keeping your Orange Slices in vast, foul-smelling stockpiles.
At least you know they’ll never go off. Not even bacteria would touch that soggy dough-garbage.