Woolworths wants two companies tied to King's Farms wound up. The farm is bigger than either one.

King's Farms says it grows more than 5.5 million mangoes every year.

On 18 September, two companies connected to the Katherine farming operation appeared on the insolvency register for a very different reason.

Woolworths Group Limited wants both wound up.

The first application is against King Producers Management Team Pty Ltd, ACN 160 755 840. Woolworths filed it on 28 July. The second is against King's Farms Pty Ltd, ACN 166 948 901. Woolworths filed that application the following day.

Both are listed in the Federal Court in Queensland at 11am on 25 September 2026. The notices are published by ASIC for King Producers Management Team and King's Farms.

Neither company has been wound up.

A winding-up application asks a court to make that order. It is not itself a finding that a company is insolvent, and an application can be settled, dismissed, adjourned or otherwise resolved before an order is made.

The register published both notices on 18 September. The applications themselves were filed in July. Everything below reports what ASIC published, not what occurred on the day of publication.

Which leaves the obvious question. A supermarket group buys from growers. Why would Woolworths be the one owed money?

There is at least one documented earlier dispute. In January 2024, the Courier-Mail reported that Woolworths was seeking A$939,733 from King Producers Management Team Pty Ltd for what the report described as logistics and transportation services supplied through Woolworths' transport operation, Primary Connect.

That answers it, at least in outline. Woolworths is best known here as a supermarket buyer, but it also runs an enormous supply-chain network. The earlier dispute was reported as a bill for moving goods, not a claim over mangoes.

There is one important limit. The Open Register has not established that the winding-up applications filed in July 2026 arise from that A$939,733 dispute. The earlier report establishes a previous commercial dispute. It does not establish the amount or basis of the debt Woolworths is relying on now. Those details remain missing from the public material reviewed for this article.

But something else was happening around King Producers in the weeks before Woolworths filed.

Three dated changes appear in the public record inside four weeks.

On 1 July 2026, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations terminated the PALM Scheme Deed of Agreement held by King Producers Management Team. The department gave the reason as non-compliance with the deed, and said there were no PALM scheme workers employed by King Producers at the time of termination.

On 23 July 2026, the registered business name King's Bees NT, held by the same company since June 2015, ended. Every other field on that register record still reads as current. The company remains active, remains registered for GST, and has recorded a Katherine main business location continuously since 2012. The business name is the single entry carrying an end date.

On 28 July, Woolworths filed against King Producers Management Team. On 29 July, it filed against King's Farms Pty Ltd.

None of those dates establishes causation. Business names lapse for ordinary reasons, including simple non-renewal, and nothing reviewed by The Open Register establishes that the PALM termination had anything to do with Woolworths' court action.

What it does show is that several public-record details around one company changed in the weeks before Woolworths filed. Anyone looking only at the company's current business names in August would no longer have seen King's Bees NT.

The change in the labour picture is the starkest of the three. In November 2024, the ABC reported from King's Farms during mango season. At the time, more than 100 seasonal labourers were living and working on the farm, in Australia under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme. Twenty months later, the department said King Producers Management Team employed no PALM workers at the time its deed was terminated.

At this point the story stops being about two court cases.

King Producers Management Team Pty Ltd has been active since 2012 and is registered for GST. King's Farms Pty Ltd was registered in 2013 and its ABN remains active, although it is not currently registered for GST. Those are the two respondents.

There is also an older company, King Producers Pty Ltd, a separate legal entity from King Producers Management Team. It remains registered and dates to 2 February 1989.

The date is notable. King's Farms' own history says the farming operation began in 1989, when the family purchased the land and established one of Katherine's early mango plantations.

That does not prove King Producers Pty Ltd owns the farm or sits above the two companies now facing Woolworths. It establishes something simpler: an active King Producers company dating to the year the farm says it began is not named in either application.

The Northern Territory government's water register gives King's Farms Pty Ltd a concrete operational role.

The company holds groundwater extraction licence T2: an agricultural licence allowing up to 590 megalitres a year from NT Portions 6493 and 6501, expiring on 30 April 2029.

The next record makes the structure more interesting. Another company, Top Kat Fruits Pty Ltd, holds licence T3. Its entitlement is 2,558 megalitres a year, more than four times the King's Farms allocation, and its licence covers NT Portions 6500, 6501 and 6493. That overlaps both portions on the King's Farms licence.

The two licences also share an expiry date of 30 April 2029 and the same correspondence address in Katherine.

The licences therefore overlap geographically and share both a correspondence address and expiry date. What that says about the relationship between the two companies is not established by the register.

Top Kat Fruits is also not named in either Woolworths application.

On the supermarket shelf, King's Farms presents as one business. The legal record is much less simple. The farm operates from Fox Road in Katherine, promotes Katherine Gold mangoes and says it grows 4,500 tonnes of seedless watermelon and 12 tonnes of honey alongside them.

Around the King's Farms operating landscape, at least four separate companies now appear in the public record. Two are respondents to Woolworths' applications. One is an active company dating to the year the farm says it began. One holds the larger water entitlement over overlapping land.

The court is not being asked to wind up a farm, a mango brand or an orchard. It is being asked to wind up two particular companies.

Why is Woolworths pursuing these two companies specifically? The notices do not say how much Woolworths claims, on what basis, or why it needs orders against both. Nor do they establish whether the current cases continue the dispute reported in 2024.

Which legal entity actually controls which part of the operating business? The registers give fragments. One company held the labour approval until July. One holds a water licence. One predates both. One holds a larger entitlement over overlapping land. How they fit together is not on any public record reviewed for this article.

Neither can be answered from similar names alone, which is why the distinction matters to anyone who supplies, finances or contracts with the business.

On 25 September 2026, the Federal Court is scheduled to hear Woolworths' applications against King Producers Management Team Pty Ltd and King's Farms Pty Ltd.

Woolworths has applied against two companies. Other entities remain outside the applications.

The mangoes are easy to see. Which company sits behind which part of the farm is much harder.

Neither company Woolworths has applied against has been wound up, and this issue's register also carries procedural filings and solvent members' voluntary liquidations. If a company you deal with has entered administration or liquidation, our creditor guide explains the public-record steps and how to identify the correct legal entity. Each route is keyed to how the money is at stake, every statement links to its official source, and the entity lookup is free.

Owed money by a company in administration or liquidation?

We publish public-record information, not advice. Where a company is in an external administration, the appointed practitioner is the authoritative source on that matter.

ASIC published notices concerning 117 entities on the day, across 123 notices. 46 are newly published distress entries: a company entering an insolvent process, disclosed in this issue. The remaining 71 are:

A single count of the day's filings would report 117 entities where the register supports 46 newly published distress entries.

The register carried 46 newly published distress entries. Those carrying a former or trading name are listed first. Dates are from the notice.

43 further companies appear on the register for this day: see the full 18 September 2026 register.

36 of the day's entities carry a trading, business or former name that differs from the legal name by more than case, punctuation or a corporate suffix. The entities below are the ones an exposure list of any shape would surface first: distress entries, then applications and stage changes. Solvent and procedural rows are counted but not shown.

33 further entities carry at least one other name on record. The complete resolved name set for the day ships as the Ledger File.

Important: These are winding-up applications, not findings that the companies are insolvent or have been wound up. Hearing details are those listed in the notices and may change or may already have passed. Check the current court list and company status before acting.

17 further applications appear on the register for this day: see the full 18 September 2026 register.

These dates come from the notices and are recorded for reference. Confirm the current position before acting.

33 further dated obligations appear on the register for this day: see the full 18 September 2026 register.

These matters already appeared in an earlier issue. Both dates below are PUBLICATION dates, so the underlying events are earlier still. Neither step is visible to anyone reading a single day in isolation.

If you carry exposure to a Katherine produce supplier, the identifier on the invoice is the thing to check, not the name on the tray. Two companies are before the Federal Court on 25 September. At least two more appear in the same operating landscape and are not named in either application, and the public record does not establish how any of them relate to each other.

Both applications are on ASIC's published notices register: King Producers Management Team and King's Farms.

This issue resolved one farm brand to four separate companies, two of them respondents, by following ACNs rather than the trading name. That is the work the register does every publication day: legal names, operating names, ACNs, process changes and court dates, connected across days instead of read one notice at a time.

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