Century Pacific eyes more acquisitions

MANILA, Philippines — Century Pacific Food Inc. (CNPF), the food and beverage company of the Po family, is on investment mode, with potential acquisitions currently in the works to support the company’s sustained growth outlook.

CNPF executive chairman Christopher Po said the company is optimistic on the growth of the economy and is encouraged to continuously invest in capital projects.

Po said the company plans to make further investments in capacity on top of the $40 million investment in a new coconut factory in Misamis Occidental announced last year.

“It’s no secret that we are expanding different parts of our business. We do plan to invest further for capacity expansion, because we see strong growth in the coconut business both for export and domestic,” he said.

“As far as acquisitions are concerned, there are a few bolt-ons, so those are of smaller sizes that we can just bolt-on to our existing platforms. So watch this space. I don’t think we can talk about it at this point, but there are some discussions ongoing,” Po said.

Po said that CNPF is eyeing to spend about P4 billion to P5 billion this year for investments in new capacity, some of which are continuation projects that carry over from last year.

“So we are seeing good opportunities to invest in this economy and we will continue to do so. We’re a strong believer in the Philippine economy, that for the foreseeable future, our outlook is for the GDP (gross domestic product) growth to still come in around five percent to six percent and it is our aspiration to grow two times of that,” Po said.

“And we will certainly be actively managing our portfolio of businesses to achieve that 10 to 15 percent growth going forward into the next three to five years,” he said.

CNPF, one of the country’s leading branded food and beverage companies, is engaged in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of processed marine, meat, milk, coconut, plant-based and pet products.

Its brands include Century Tuna, Argentina, 555, Ligo and Birch Tree.

“We think our core business still has room to run. The runway is still quite attractive, with even our flagship tuna business with category penetration rates of below 80 percent and frequency of consumption still below four times a month,” Po said.

According to Po, CNPF’s dairy business also still has a long runway, especially as the middle class grows and the desire for protein and healthier diets increase.

Its meat business is likewise expected to grow as the company continues to introduce innovations for its meat portfolio.

“So hopefully, that provides us enough diversification going forward, even if there’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of risks in the economy, a lot of unknowns. We think that our diversified portfolio will serve us well as we strive to deliver double-digit growth, both topline and bottom line,” Po said.

CNPF president and CEO Teodoro Po, however, admitted that the company is currently feeling the impact of the reciprocal tariff on Philippine exports entering the US at 10 percent.

“So it’s actually already affecting our US businesses, because there’s already a 10 percent minimum straight tariff being imposed on exports to the US. So our significant exports of coconut water to the US is already affected by the US tariffs and some of our tuna and branded exports are also affected,” he said.

“However, for now, there’s a combination of pass on and absorption that’s happening in the market, but it’s quite volatile and unstable at this point. In about two weeks, there’s supposed to be more definitive results from the US, but we don’t know and so we’re waiting to see how that turns out,” he added.

CNPF commends the Philippines government’s strong efforts in lobbying and negotiating with the US government.

“We hope these turn out well, and we pray for good results. But for now, we’re just going to have to live through this uncertainty, just like everybody else in the global trade and well we just hope for the best going forward,” he said.