CNPF sets P1.8 billion capex for 2018

Century Pacific Foods, Inc. (CNPF) is ramping up spending to P1.8 billion this year to expand its capacity, while gunning for a single-digit growth in earnings amid rising costs of fuel and raw materials.
“Capital spending will be roughly around P1.5 billion to P1.8 billion this year. The vast majority of that would be for capital expenditures for capacity expansion,” CNPF’s newly-elected Executive Chairman Christopher T. Po said in a briefing after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Ortigas Center on Tuesday, July 3.
The 2018 capex is higher than the P1.1 to 1.5 billion it committed to spend in 2017.
Mr. Po said the company would have to expand its tuna and can-making facilities as both are already hitting their full capacities. The tuna factory, for instance, is now running at 300- to 350 metric tons of tuna produced per day.
“We think the efficient scale for a new plant would be 50 to 100 metric tons of tuna produced a day. Once we finish this plant, it will satisfy our requirement for the next three to five years,” Mr. Po said.
The tuna in General Santos City is expected to be completed by the third quarter of this year. — Arra B. Francia