Sugar producers commit supply to Coca-Cola — DA

Sugar producers have assured the Department of Agriculture (DA) that there will be no shortage of supply in the market, at the same time committing to address the supply problems of beverage giant Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines.

In an interview Monday afternoon, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol told reporters that he met with sugar industry stakeholders to get their assurance that they will fulfill the commitment they made to Coca-Cola, among others, in terms of enough sugar supply.

“So I received the assurance from major players of the industry that as promised, Coca-Cola will have its sugar,” Pinol said.

“There was a bit of delay in the delivery of supplies because admittedly, there were issues in the sufficiency of supply in market,” he said.

Last week, Piñol received complaints from Coca-Cola that farmers were not complying with the agreement to sell sugar to the beverage company.

After meeting with stakeholders Monday, Piñol denied speculations of a sugar shortage.

“After our assessment, it was established that there’s enough sugar in the market. Although supply is tight, their (sugar industry stakeholders) projections were not accurate,” Piñol said.

He added that they reviewed the cause of delay and decided that the problem can be initially handled by conversion.

“We will be employing same method of validation of the projected harvest in the sugar industry like what we are doing right now with rice via satellite mapping and satellite validation, ”Piñol said.

This will involve a collaboration between the DA, the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA and the Philippine Coconut Authority(PCA), which will engage a company that will conduct an aerial validation for the actual standing crops.

Moving forward, Piñol said production of sugar is expected to be better next year.

“It is expected to be better next year. Not as good as the previous year, but actually better this year,” the agriculture chief said.

Sugar prices at the mill gate have started to improve as it jumped 35 percent to P1,671 per 50-kg bag as of May 6 from P1,241 per 50-kg bag in 2017.

Earlier this month, the SRA said Philippine sugar production will meet domestic demand and US quota with the target of 2.27 million metric tons (MT) despite the lower output for the year.

A sugar crop year starts every September and ends in August.

Latest data showed that local raw sugar production continued its decline as it reached 1.83 million MT as of May 6, 11 percent lower than the 2.16 million MT recorded in the same period in 2017.