Coca-Cola reaffirms long-term commitment in PH

In a virtual roundtable discussion with the press Thursday, Coca-Cola Philippines president and general manager Winn Everhart said the company will not sacrifice its future plans here despite the global health crisis, and the firm will stay invested and commit here for the longer term. (File photo: Coca-Cola Philippines Careers/Facebook)

MANILA – Beverage firm Coca-Cola has reaffirmed its long-term commitment in the Philippine market despite the challenges brought by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

In a virtual roundtable discussion with the press Thursday, Coca-Cola Philippines president and general manager Winn Everhart said the company will not sacrifice its future plans here despite the global health crisis, and the firm will stay invested and commit here for the longer term.

Everhart said Coca-Cola’s sales dipped at the onset of the lockdown measures in March, April, and May with restaurants and ‘away-from-home’ businesses were either closed or in limited operations. This segment accounts for 50 percent of Coca-Cola’s business.

“We definitely have seen consumers’ consumption patterns changed dramatically. As you can imagine, businesses and restaurants, businesses we say that away from home it used to be 50 percent of our business, if not more, has pretty much gone away during the quarantine,” he added.

Gareth McGeown, president and chief executive officer Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc. (CCBPI) –the bottling arm of Coca-Cola, added the company remains optimistic in the local market.

Recently, CCBPI announced an additional USD22 million or around PHP1.1 billion investments on top of the USD73 million investments allotted for this year.

“It’s not like many markets are getting investments; not many companies in the Philippines are willing to invest. But we see that this is a longer-term play in the future, not only in the Philippines but also for our business as well,” McGeown said.

The PHP1.1-billion investments will be poured into Coca-Cola’s manufacturing lines to increase its production capacity, he said.

“And the investments are going around all across the board. We have some investments in Luzon and we have substantial investments in Mindanao this year that we haven’t done in previous years,” he added.

McGeown said the investments in Mindanao will go specifically in its production lines in Misamis Oriental, Zamboanga Sibugay, and Davao del Sur.

Meanwhile, McGeown said there are some delays in rolling out CCBPI’s PHP1-billion PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottle recycling facility announced last year due to travel restrictions.

Everhart added equipment and technicians who will install the high-technology equipment are outsourced.

“As soon as travel restrictions improve, we will be running,” Everhart said. “The commitment to (the) Philippines is still there and will continue to be there.”