MANILA – Century Pacific Food, Inc. (CNPF), one of the country’s leading branded food companies, booked a 24-percent increase in net income to PHP3.9 billion last year even amid the pandemic.
Its consolidated revenues also grew by 19 percent to PHP48.3 billion in 2020, driven primarily by the outperformance of the Branded business with sales rising by 25 percent versus the same period last year.
“We saw robust demand for our branded products all throughout 2020 –beginning with a strong pre-Covid-19 performance, followed by pandemic-related demand spikes, then sustained growth to wrap up the year due largely to the essentials and staples nature of our portfolio,” CNPF executive chairman Christopher Po said in a statement Wednesday.
The Branded business -composed primarily of the Marine, Meat, and Milk business units– remains to be majority of the company’s overall sales representing 81 percent of total topline.
The balance of CNPF’s 19 percent of sales is accounted for by its commodity-linked original equipment manufacturer (OEM) export business, which saw topline decline 1 percent year-on-year as a result of softer commodity prices, reallocation of capacity to domestic requirements, and a stronger peso.
It, however, continued to contribute positively to the company’s net income and cash flows.
“Amidst the uncertainties of 2020, our strong position allowed us to focus primarily on the future --improving our digital capabilities, increasing capacities across our value chain, and building up a robust pipeline of innovative and new products. Over the next 12 to 18 months, we look forward to releasing these to market as we persist in our mission of providing affordable nutrition to the Filipino population,” Po said.
CNPF has previously disclosed a double-digit topline and bottomline growth target for this year despite a high 2020 base and continued uncertainty around the Covid-19 pandemic.
The growth target is due largely to resilient demand for the company’s core branded products, recovery in its OEM export business, and increased contribution from new products and emerging categories.
Starting April 1 this year, the emerging categories will include refrigerated food following the company’s acquisition of Pacific Meat Company, Inc. (PMCI) -an emerging player in the large refrigerated food category.
PMCI, a fellow subsidiary of CNPF’s parent company, comes equipped with its own manufacturing facilities, cold chain distribution, and a robust innovation pipeline of refrigerated better-for-you products.
It is expected to provide CNPF with growth opportunities in a major segment of the food market.
“We are looking at refrigerated food as another platform for growth and look forward to bringing in PMCI as it has now hit scale and built out a pipeline of new products that will supplement CNPF’s. It will provide capabilities in a completely different food segment which is growing and will have synergies with the shelf-stable part of our portfolio,” Po said. (PR)
