San Miguel Food sees sustained profit post merger

San Miguel Pure Foods Co. Inc., now officially named San Miguel Food and Beverage Inc., expects continued profitability this year after the consolidation of its food and beverage businesses.

“We expect for 2018 that we will be able to sustain profitability coming from 2017. That is the expectation and we’re working on the numbers given that we think that this is going to still be a good year given the robust economy in the country,” San Miguel Food and Beverage president Francisco Alejo III said during the com- pany’s annual stockholders meeting Friday.

“We see consumer spending going up and there are a still a lot of spending going into food,” Alejo added.

San Miguel Corp. last year decided to merge its food and beverage subsidiaries through a P336-billion swap of SMC’s shares in beer and other beverage business.

The company’s net income in the first quarter stood at P1.4 billion, seven percent lower from last year, primarily due to foreign exchange losses caused by the peso depreciation against the US dollar along with mark-to-market losses from raw material imports.

Without the foreign exchange impact, net income for the period would have been at P1.5 billion.

With the country’s robust economy, Alejo said the company is poised for continued growth in the coming months and years.

He said expansion of its plants for hotdog, flour, feedmill and ready-to-eat products are continuing.

“In the end, we are all looking at the robust economy, with all of the infra spending, a lot of employment created, it augurs well on the types of products we offer,” Alejo said.