CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY— Philippine food conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) will expand the use of its sprawling 50-hectare Misamis Oriental facility by putting up a water filtration plant in the province.
Misamis Oriental Gov. Yevgeny Vincente Emano disclosed this last Sept. 18, a day after SMC president Ramon Ang announced that the conglomerate has decided to forego the bottled water business that was originally planned for the manufacturing plant located in Tagoloan town.
Ang, who released his statement on Sunday, also said: “We are happy to announce that the Purewater brand will live on, but not as a plastic water bottle business but through SMC’s investment in filtration technology that will be deployed during calamities to make safe drinking water available to displaced and affected families in lieu of environmentally unsustainable bottled water.”
SMC started constructing facilities in barangay Sta. Ana, followed by a groundbreaking of a new brewery with a capacity of 1.5 hectoliters on April.
In August, its subsidiary Purefoods Hormel Company followed suit and laid capsule for a meat processing plant with all packaging of its line of hotdogs, ham, bacon, chicken nuggets and canned beef to be transferred there once it begins operations.
Emano said an expanded Petron depot will also rise in the area. SMC owns majority stakes of Petron Corporation, the largest oil refining firm in the country.
According to Emano, the combined investments of the four facilities – brewery, meat processing plant, filtration plant and oil depot – will total P60 billion. (PNA/Mark D. Francisco)
