Univet launches market-boosting products
Univet Nutrition and Animal Healthcare Co., the leading manufacturer and distributor of animal health and nutrition brands, will launch new products to boost its market share.
Unahco, through unit Unagro, is going full blast with the launch of new fertilizers to cater to more local farmers.
Unagro distributes crop protection products that ensure crop quality and maximize yield potential to improve crop production and harvest. It currently has four fertilizer brands.
“The agriculture side started in 2012 but we were just testing the waters since it was not the core competence of the company. But this year, we are going full blast,” said Unagro operations assistant vice president Cris Pajimola.
Unagro is set to introduce four more products next year which include herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and molluscicides.
These will come from Indonesia, India, Japan and the US and will be distributed locally together with the current line- up of soil sets focusing on elimination of soil borne diseases.
The current product lineup improves nutrient, water holding capacity and mineral availability for plant nutrition, as well as grain and crop set on development, yield boost, and improved milling recovery.
Pajimola said Unagro, which has less than 10 percent share in the industry, is expanding its reach particularly in Mindanao.
“We plan to penetrate other plantations such as banana, pineapple, corn and high value crops including vegetables,” he added.
By 2020, Unagro aims to capture at least 10 percent of the local industry currently dominated by German company Bayer and Swiss agribusiness firm Syngenta.
“We are still scratching the surface and still in the planning stage. Right now, we are prioritizing on the inputs and then we will eventually venture into machineries and seeds,” Pajimola said.
He said the move would coincide with the Department of Agriculture’s program of encouraging farmers to lessen the use of inorganic products that may be detrimental to consumers.
“This can serve as a solution to farmers who are used to inorganic fertilizers because some soils are now acidic and have no balance because of excessive use,” he said.
“We are tapping our customers and partners in the animal industry since we already have the rapport. We just have to inject the new product in their operations and this will also serve as an expansion project for them,” Pajimola added.
Unahco is a subsidiary of United Laboratories Inc., a leading pharmaceutical company in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia.
Unilab’s other business units include Univet, Thunderbird, Pigrolac, Sarimanok Poultry Feeds, Commercial Farm Group, Unahco Food Solutions, DoggiEssentials, United Agrivet Distribution and Unahco International.