Earlier this year Synlait entered into a 25/75 partnership with...

Earlier this year Synlait entered into a 25/75 partnership with Chinese company New Hope to establish a company called New Hope Nutritionals.

New Hope Nutritionals will now sell two new infant formula brands produced by Synlait directly into the Chinese market, these infant formula brands are Akara and Akarola.

This just seems to me to be a pretty jolly good business equation, arguably the top New Zealand quality infant formula producer teaming up with one of the largest existing distributor retailers already on the ground in China.

The first shipments to China have now been made and it should be an interesting watch to gauge sales growth over the next 12 months.

Synlait's Chinese connections are very strong, in addition to the partnership with New Hope, the largest shareholder in Synlait is China Bright Dairy who have 39%.

In my view this provides for a unique magnitude of access to the Chinese market for Akara and Akarola infant formula along with the market research that both China Bright and New Hope can offer.