Hubbard bares all in cupboard

By DITA DE BONI

Dick Hubbard revealed his "three bottoms" to stakeholders this week in a wide-ranging company report which he hopes will set a bold trend.

The Hubbard Foods "triple-bottom-line report", released yesterday, contains regular financial information, including revenue, profits and market share - information the company is not required strictly required to reveal as a private company - as well as commenting on almost every aspect of the firm's Operation.

The report, which Mr Hubbard says " took some soul searching on our behalf", was an attempt to be accountable to all stakeholders "in an open, honest and transparent way", and to "boldly go where no one has gone before", the company says.

Financial information shows the company generated sales of $24 million in the year to March, that it made pretax profits of $978,052 - slightly down from the the year before - and that its domestic market share of the cereals market gained slightly to 18.5 per cent, with Hubbard-branded product representing 10.5 per cent of local sales.

Of its total production, 14.4 per cent is exported to Britain, Asia, Australia and Kenya.

The report also revealed that Hubbard staff meet founder and chief executive Dick Hubbard over a "KFC lunch" about every three months.

The average remuneration to the 116 "souls on board" is $31,820.

Mr Hubbard says the company's central philosophy is to look after the interests of all its stakeholders, who include employees, customers and the community.

"We subscribe to the principle that a company should behave as a good corporate citizen ... Hubbard Foods has a fundamental belief in the concept that the actions of the company are felt well beyond the company's immediate sphere of influence."

Commenting on Mr Hubbard's prediction that such involved reporting would become more fashionable, the Business Roundtable's Roger Kerr said he had noted that businesses were going in two directions.

Some were pulling back from disclosure beyond the usual requirements; others were disclosing plenty of their own volition.

But he said that while owner-operators such as Mr Hubbard could do what they wanted with their information, executives of publicly owned companies had a responsibility to their shareholders that exceeded their other duties.

Too much disclosure could threaten a company's competitiveness.