Century Pacific Food Inc. said over the weekend it expects to sustain a double-digit growth in sales this year, following a 20-percent increase in 2020.
“We’ve even actually expanded our operations by adding as much as about 1,800 new jobs and built a new factory to cope with increasing demand both domestically and internationally,” Century Pacific executive vice president and chief operating officer Gregory Banzon said during the Economic Forum 2021: The Future of the Philippine Manufacturing Industry organized by Security Bank.
He said the company was looking after the well-being and safety of 15,000 workers across different manufacturing sites.
It recently signed a tripartite agreement with the government to import up to 75,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to ensure the safety of its employees from the virus.
“We’ve been able to sustain our operations, running about 95 to 98 percent capacity utilization in some months. Our scorecard, in terms of COVID prevention is 99.9 percent. We’ve had less than 30 infections and mostly coming from community spread,” Banzon said.
He said the food industry or food category would continue to lead the recovery as many displaced workers turned to home cooking for livelihood as evidenced by the increased demand for food preparation products.
Banzon said while many shifted to home-cooked meals to save on daily overhead expenses, others started bakery as a business or as an artistic outlet in the pandemic.
Century Pacific posted an average of 20 percent annual compounded growth across all 18 products and brands over the past four years.
As the largest canned food manufacturer, the company projects at least P50 billion in revenues in 2021 with conservative growth target of 10 percent.
