MANILA – Alaska Milk Corp. (AMC) aims to grow its revenue in the Philippines by 20 percent this year despite the challenging business environment, according to its corporate affairs director, lawyer Maria Angela Esquivel.
In an interview Thursday, Esquivel said that aside from growing its sales, AMC also sees a recovery in profit this year.
She said the past years have been challenging for the company due to the pandemic, citing the supply chain issues of raw materials like sugar and maintaining their prices as the trade department had put on hold the issuance of suggested retail price (SRP) bulletin.
Milk products are included in the SRP bulletin of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as these are part of basic goods, which prices are being monitored.
Esquivel said driving the growth of the company will be the strong start of Friesland Campina Professional, the parent company of AMC, which exceeded its targets for the first quarter of 2023.
She added the continuous recovery of its cream category and increasing demand of its core products such as evaporated, condensed milk and powdered milk will also support the company’s growth this year.
Alaska is leading the market in evaporated and condensed milk categories, but Esquivel said the competition becomes more challenging as new and cheaper products enter the market.
On the other hand, Alaska ranks third in the powdered milk category.
“We have launched new products in 2022 to aid in our objective of driving distribution focusing on penetration [of] stock keeping units,” Esquivel said, citing the launch of Frutti Yo and Sakto pack condensed milk which have helped drive its distribution.
In 2022, AMC posted a 6-percent growth in sales driven by its culinary, ready-to-drink and coffee creamer categories.
“With the continuous challenge on cost like rising cost of sugar, we are driving our focus on profitability via strengthening our earnings model,” she added. (PNA)
