Vitarich targets P300-M income

MANILA, Philippines - Vitarich Corp., one of the pioneers in poultry and feeds manufacturing in the country, targets a P300-million net income this year, a huge jump from P18 million in 2016, as it gears up for its massive expansion nationwide.

Months after exiting corporate rehabilitation, the company said it is confident it would be able to sustain the gains last year and expects to post a 17-fold increase in net income, banking on expansion in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

“For this year, we expect to end our revenues at about P6 billion and we’re hoping net income to reach P300 million. We are on track to hit that target,” Vitarich president and CEO Ricardo Manuel Sarmiento said in a round table discussion yesterday.

Vitarich ended 2016 with P18 million in net income, 144 percent higher than the P7.2 million the previous year on higher sales volume, better prices and lower cost of raw materials.

For the first quarter alone, the company breached its 2016 income after earning P47 million as consolidated sale of goods totalled P1.6 billion from P1.2 billion in the comparative period a year ago.

For this year, Sarmiento said the company is earmarking P80 million for capital expenditures, bulk of which will be allotted for expansion nationwide, and will further increase in the next years.

“We have a huge deficit of locally produced livestock and a big portion is still being imported. The challenge on the industry is to scale up our operations and to produce everything locally,” Sarmiento said.

In the Philippines, 80 percent of poultry and hogs are being produced locally while the remaining 20 percent are imported.

Furthermore, Vitarich is set to open a new animal feed mill in Davao by July and will double the capacity of its dressing plant in the same area from 471,000 heads to 942,000 heads monthly.

The company will also expand its Iloilo feed mill, doubling its capacity to produce animal feed, from an average of 93,600 50-kilograms bags per month to around 187,200 of 50-kg bags.

In line with their expansion plans, Vitarich is looking for partners and end-customers with the same mindset to expand the company’s sales and distribution network.