Tanduay shuts down rum-making facility in Quiapo

The Lucio Tan group has shut down the liquor production facility of rum-making unit Tanduay Distillers Inc. in Quiapo, Manila, to better manage costs as demand is seen adequately served by a larger plant in Cabuyao, Laguna.

Tanduay, however, intends to renovate part of the facility to serve as a museum that will showcase its products and distilled spirits production methods, parent firm LTG Inc. disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange Thursday.

The museum intends to feature Tanduay’s heritage as a distillery, having been set up in 1854, and showcase the sugar industry, which is linked to the liquor business.

About 3,000 square meters of the Quiapo property will be developed into a museum, which will be similar to the Heineken museum in Amsterdam and the wine-making museums in France.

The Lucio Tan group is currently in talks with the Department of Tourism to open the Tanduay museum on this property as part of walking tours in Manila which are being promoted by the government.

An industry source privy to the project said the proposed museum was scheduled to be set up this year.

In the meantime, the Manila production facility was decommissioned on April 1. The distillery had a capacity to produce 30,000 cases a day. It employed about 150 workers, whose employment Tanduay had to terminate with the shutdown of the plant. Tanduay compensated the workers who lost their jobs, one source said.

“TDI believes that its current and anticipated future production requirements can be met through its other remaining facilities, which use more modern production technologies and processes,” it said in the disclosure.

With the decommissioning, Tanduay will rely more on its production facility in Cabuyao, Laguna, which has the capacity to produce 100,000 cases of liquor a day or three times the capacity of the Manila facility, based on insider estimates. Doris C. Dumlao