F&N to continue focus on growth in Malaysia, Thailand F&B sectors
KUALA LUMPUR: Freaser and Neave Holdings Bhd (F&N) will continue to sharpen its focus on ensuring continuous and sustainable growth in the food and beverage (F&B) Malaysia, F&B Thailand and exports segments, said chairman Tengku Syed Badarudin Jamalullail.
He said in financial year 2018 (FY18), the company continued on its journey to strengthen itself by identifying internal growth drivers, and preparing to be even more resilient to market uncertainties and business challenges.
“In short, we have prepared ourselves to seize tomorrow’s opportunities,” he said in the company’s Annual Report 2018 released on Dec 24.
F&N said the overall market for F&B Malaysia would remain difficult going forward, as the company expected competitive pricing pressures, volatile foreign currency movements and unpredictable commodity prices to continue in 2019.
“Nevertheless, innovation and reinvention will be at the forefront of the business, to ensure the company constantly meet customer expectations for more affordable, tastier and healthier products.
“We will prioritise the extraction of synergies from our transformation programme and increase efforts at expanding our global reach for the export market, and fast-track research and development to formulate and introduce more healthier options in financial year 2019,” it said.
F& N said it would closely monitor the impact and take timely action on the imposition of excise duty on ready-to-drink beverages that contained sugar exceeding five grams per 100 millilitres as announced during the 2019 Budget.
As for F& B Thailand, F& N expects overall domestic to remain challenging and likely to commence paying corporate taxes next year, after the utilisation of the carried forward losses from non-promoted businesses.
“Nonetheless, we will continue to build our capacity and capability, sharpen our competitiveness with brand building, expansion of our distribution network to increase the reach of our products, and further expand our network of loyal hawkers,” it said.
In terms of distribution, F&N plans to expand its coverage to as many channels as possible and will synergise with Thailand’s ThaiBev to expand the company’s distribution in the Thai F&B retail channel.
Meanwhile, F&N’s FY18 exports from Malaysia continued to report year-on-year double-digit growth, signalling that the company is well on track to surpass its RM500 million revenue goal in 2020.