Century Pacific Food bullish on meat alternative brand

CENTURY Pacific Food, Inc. is studying several market expansions for its meat alternative unMeat after the brand’s success in US markets, a company official said.

“We are scoping other opportunities, developmental work in Asian markets such as Singapore. We limited our approach to five key markets to see how much traction we can get,” said Century Pacific Food Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer Gregory H. Banzon in an online briefing on July 6.

The company has been making significant gains for its meat alternative brand in Singapore, Mr. Banzon said, adding that unMeat is set to be introduced in Australian markets in the next few months.

He added that the company is also studying opportunities to expand the plant-based product in European markets.

“Before we enter a market there are certain criteria we use to evaluate the opportunity and before we pull the trigger,” Mr. Banzon said.

“So far, Europe looks very attractive, but we are doing the due diligence to see if we can achieve the same level of success we have in the US,” he added.

The company announced earlier that it had expanded market reach in the US for the unMeat product line as it began to roll out in about 2,000 Albertsons outlets.

In January, it introduced the brand across more than 2,000 Walmart stores, while making it available through Harris Teeter, HEB, Meijer, and select grocery stores in the US.

For the first quarter, the company reported an attributable net income of about P1.5 billion, up 6.4% from P1.41 billion in the same period last year.

Consolidated revenues rose by 13% to P15.62 billion from P14.8 billion in the prior year mainly driven by the performance of its business units.

Century Pacific Food is a holding firm with business interests in buying and selling, processing, canning, packaging, and manufacturing food products.

It went up by 0.99% or 25 centavos to P215.50 per share on Friday. — Adrian H. Halili