Asia Brewery bets ₱1B on yogurt production

Asia Brewery Inc. (ABI), a unit of the Tan-led conglomerate LT Group Inc. (LTG), is set to invest up to ₱1 billion to build a factory in Laguna province to produce shelf-stable yogurt, expected to be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia.

- By DEXTER BARRO II

The investment will be made under ABI Pascual Foods Inc., the joint venture (JV) between ABI and Spanish dairy manufacturer Calidad Pascual.

Pascual Foods, the company behind the popular line of spoonable yogurts and yogurt drinks, currently imports its products directly from Spain.

The main objective of investing in a local facility, according to ABI President Michael Tan, is to end importation altogether and instead manufacture the dairy products locally.

"We plan to put up a new factory here so that we don't have to import. So it will be locally produced, and also this factory can export to ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] and beyond," Tan told reporters.

Tan said the factory would ramp up Pascual Foods' production, generating more jobs and boosting the income of local dairy farmers in the process.