Nestlé ups PH investment

Consumer goods giant Nestlé Philippines is investing P2 billion to build a new manufacturing facility in Batangas that will produce protomalt, a key ingredient used for its Milo products.

The fresh capital outlay, on top of the P14 billion that the company has already rolled out over the last five years, reflected the Nestlé group’s confidence in the potential of the local economy and in the manufacturing capacity of the Philippines. The Philippines ranks eighth biggest market in Nestlé’s global network and is the second largest in Asia after China. The country is also the second-biggest market for Milo products globally after Malaysia.

“This only shows that Nestlé is here to stay. We are confident in the potential of the market and in our ability to meet the new expectations of customers,” Nestlé Philippines chair and CEO Jacques Reber said in a briefing Tuesday.

The latest outlay formed part of a bigger investment plan to be rolled out by the Nestlé Group in the Philippines over the next five years.

Reber disclosed that the 5,400-square-meter protomalt facility would be third plant within the company’s 29-hectare complex in Lipa, Batangas.

The new malt plant will have a capacity of 35,000 tons once fully operational and will initially serve the company’s domestic requirements. Construction of the plant began in December last year and is expected to be completed by October 2017. Nestlé Philippines expects production at this new malt plant to start by November next year. It would generate only 23 jobs because the new plant will be a state-of-the-art facility, Reber explained.