Tanis Confectionery takes over Fast Track operation

Majority position in joint venture with JHTester Industrial Automation opens door to Asia/South Pacific markets.

Calling it a “once in a lifetime opportunity for us,” CEO Leo Tanis of Dutch-based Tanis Confectionery (TC) said the company has taken over Fast Track Engineering’s activities. The move came about following a joint venture agreement signed this past Monday by TC with Australia-based JH Tester Industrial Automation, which had acquired Fast Track Engineering in September 2017.

The deal gives TC a majority position in the company, which was founded by Heinz Soldat in 2005 and produces a range of starch moulding lines and ancillary equipment. TC had already started to expand its activities in the Asia-Pacific region in 2015 when it established Tanis Confectionery Australia, a company responsible for a substantial part of the pump production used in TC equipment.

With the acquisition of the Fast Track Engineering, TC expands its production of moguls, sugar sanders, starch systems, dust collectors and starch storages.

“This acquisition opens the door wide to new Asian and South Pacific clients, where we are simultaneously improving our service to our existing clients in the region,” Tanis explained

Murray Tester, who will be responsible for heading the newly formed joint venture, is equally excited.

“In September last year we saw the opportunity to grab Fast Track and we didn’t think twice, and now with this joint venture with a world leading company like Tanis Confectionery, we will no doubt be able to grow the companies to heights that were not previously possible,” he said.

With more than 30 years experience in B-to-B reporting, writing and editing — the bulk of which was dedicated to covering the bakery, confectionery and snack industries — Pacyniak has chronicled changes within the food industry since the early 1980s. A Boston University journalism degree graduate, he worked for a variety of publications before joining BNP Media in 1994 as editor of Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery magazine. In 2001, he took over as editor-in-chief of Candy Industry until 2018.