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Philippines add capacity with new mills

13 September 20172 min reading
Flour millers continue to expand the capacity by adding new mills amid tight competition and low demand in Philippines.

filipinlerNumber of flour mills in the Philippines continues to increase. According to reports in some Philippine sources, despite low flour demand in the country, capacity continues to increase with new mills established.

Ernesto Chua, president of flour importer Malabon Long Life, said Indonesian-owned Mabuhay Interflour Corp. which set up in Subic two years ago will start operations next month, adding 500 tons of capacity a day. Ernesto Chua said on top of the new big flour mills, four more smaller ones had been set up, mostly owned by Filipino-Chinese businessmen.

Some of the new mills are Atlantic Grains Corp., Asian Grains Inc, Great Earth Corp., New Hope Flour Mills, North Star Milling Corp., Big C Corp. and Agri Pacific Corp.

Chua said there are no statistics available on the additional milling capacity but that plants are spread now – including those in Subic, Calamba, Cagayan de Oro, and Valenzuela.

There are now around 20 flour mills in the country, from only 12 mills around two years ago.

The Philippine flour industry, which has increased its capacity with new facilities, has to cope with raw material prices in the coming months. The Philippine Association of Flour Millers have warned of higher flour prices in the second half of the year due to drought in wheat growing areas of the United States which has caused world wheat prices to go up as much as 50 percent earlier this month. Because, the Philippines buy about 95 percent of its milling wheat requirements from the USA. The rest are sourced from Canada, and Australia.

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