Wildfoods beer deal pulled

Just six months away from the next Wildfoods Festival, organisers yesterday officially terminated the beer contract with Paddy Sweeney’s West Coast Brewing Ltd.
That is expected to open the floodgates to a deluge of applications from other breweries keen to win the lucrative beer deal.
Westland Business Unit general manager Sonya Matthews cited recent criticisms from Mr Sweeney, a former Hokitika resident and now chief executive of West Coast Brewing, as the major reason behind the decision.
Ms Matthews said those comments, made in several media outlets, were “in conflict or detrimental to the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival and our client’s good standing”.
As a result, the contract to supply the festival with beer was yesterday terminated with immediate effect, she said.
“This criticism is unacceptable. It steps well outside the provisions and the spirit of the contract and casts serious doubts over the level of trust required in the relationship that is integral to moving forward.
“Based on legal advice, we have decided to terminate the deal under the provisions available to us in the contract and move forward to the 2011 festival.”
However, Australian-based Mr Sweeney is not expected to take the decision lying down. When informed by the Guardian of the decision to terminate his contract, Mr Sweeney responded: “Let the fireworks begin.”
“Well, last week they told me I had done that, this week they are saying they have terminated the contract. Who knows what they will be telling me next week,” he said.
“Let’s get a few points cleared up — first they ignore us for two years, we are the principal sponsor of a very large event. Then, when we try to contact them they continue to ignore us. The only way I could get a response was via the media.
“In my opinion, a bunch of people are hell bent on destroying one of the greatest events in New Zealand. I sincerely hope that is not true, I just hope some common sense will prevail among some people.”
Barring legal challenges, a replacement sponsor is expected to be in place well before the next festival, on March 12.
Ms Matthews said there had always been “competitive interest” in the beer deal for the festival, and finding a new partner would not be a problem.
However, Monteith’s, which lost the contract to West Coast Brewing three years ago, has effectively already ruled itself out of the running.
DB Breweries communications adviser Lydia Blatch said the Auckland-based company already sponsored a number of other festivals and would not be chasing sponsorship of the Wildfoods again.
“The possibility that the festival may have ended its sponsorship contract with West Coast Brewing was not something we were aware of. It was our understanding that a three-year contract was in place, which ensured West Coast Brewing’s sponsorship of the festival into 2011.
“We are not currently in talks with festival organisers to pick up sponsorship of the festival and we will not be proactively contacting them.”