MANILA – Century Pacific Food, Inc. (CNPF), one of the Philippines’ largest food companies, continued its double-digit growth trend in the third quarter of the year as its net income rose by 15 percent, driven primarily by higher revenues of its branded business.
The branded business, composed primarily of its marine, meat, and milk business units, remains to be the majority of the company’s overall sales at 81 percent of its total top line.
Year-to-date, branded revenues have increased by 28 percent, outperforming the company’s consolidated revenue growth of 21 percent during the same period.
The balance of 19 percent of sales is accounted for by its commodity-linked original equipment manufacturer (OEM) export business, which has seen a topline decline year on year as a result of softer commodity prices, the reallocation of capacity to domestic requirements, and a strong peso.
The company’s earnings growth during the first nine months of the year stood at 26 percent, following a significant jump during the first half of 2020.
“In spite of easing restrictions, we continued to see healthy growth in the third quarter due largely to the essentials and staples nature of our portfolio. Demand was robust amidst a more challenging environment and weaker consumer sentiment given our value for money positioning. As a result, our products continue to take a sizable portion of the consumer basket across all income classes and have proven resilient regardless of the macroeconomic conditions,” CNPF chief finance officer Oscar Pobre said in a statement Tuesday.
The CNPF is the market leader in marine and meat products through its flagship brands Century Tuna, 555, and Argentina.
It is an emerging player in the milk category.
The CNPF is also seeing strong demand growth in its coconut business. It is a leading supplier of high-value coconut products for export, such as coconut water, virgin coconut oil, coconut flour, and coconut milk.
Consolidated net income for the first nine months of 2020 stood at PHP3.3 billion from PHP2.6 billion during the same period last year.
Pobre said they were pleased to see continued double-digit growth, which should allow the company to end the year with a 20-percent increase in earnings.
“We are also now setting our sights on 2021, wherein healthy demand for our core branded products brought about by shifts in consumer behavior, alongside our aggressive pipeline of new product innovations, should allow us to grow again by double digits in spite of our high 2020 base,” he added. (PR)
