San Miguel Foods Inc., a unit of San Miguel Corp., is putting up two meat processing plants in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur and Pagbilao, Quezon with a combined project cost of P2.4 billion.
The Board of Investments approved the registration of San Miguel Foods as a producer of whole dressed chicken and further processed chicken parts—marinated and deboned—in February this year.
“The finished products will boost the domestic market demand with further processed chicken parts targeted for established fastfood brands like Jollibee, McDonald’s and KFC within Mindanao, South Luzon and GMA areas,” said Trade Undersecretary and BoI managing head Ceferino Rodolfo Friday.
San Miguel Foods is a subsidiary of San Miguel Pure Foods Co. Inc., the food division of San Miguel, one of the country’s largest conglomerates.
San Miguel Foods has diversified products in the agro-industrial sector, with businesses ranging from commercial feeds and poultry to pork and beef.
The P1.3-billion Davao del Sur and P1.1-billion Quezon projects will have mechanized, integrated processing facilities by utilizing the technology of electric stimulation in carcasses.
San Miguel Foods said the technology would improve the quality of chicken by enhancing bleeding capability of carcass and meat tenderness even without maturation by chilling process.
Both facilities will be constructed as “AAA” plants in compliance with the standards set by the National Meat Inspection Service.
The plants will have blast freezers, chilled holding rooms, cold storage for frozen products and corresponding utilities.
They will be also be equipped with cutting edge wastewater treatment facilities in accordance with the Clean Air Act and rendering plants to convert solid waste into poultry meals for the company’s feed milling activities.
Rendering plants will be complemented with bio-filters to weed out any foul odors within the facilities.
Both plants are set to start commercial operations by January 2018 and create around 1,127 jobs in the local areas.
The Davao del Sur plant is expected to produce 17,215 metric tons of dressed chicken and 16,892 MT of further processed chicken parts annually, while the Quezon facility will have an annual production of 10,009 MT of processed chicken and 22,972 MT of further processed chicken parts.
Accredited San Miguel Foods suppliers will provide the broilers.
San Miguel Pure Foods has allotted P56 billion in capital expenditures over the next three years to expand the production capacities of its poultry, processed meats and flour milling businesses.
Pure Foods president Francisco Alejo III said during the annual stockholders’ meeting earlier the group remained committed to its aggressive expansion plans by building new manufacturing production plants
“We expect these expansions to be competed over the two to three years. Our capital expenditures roughly over the next three years is P56 billion,” Alejo said.