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THE Cold
Chain Association of the Philippines (CCAP)—whose
members store, process and transport food products—sees
a potentially huge market in Western Visayas, opting to
establish food-storage facilities in the near term.
“There
is a big market for the fishing industry in Iloilo,”
said CCAP president Anthony Dizon in an interview with
the BusinessMirror. “But we are still going to evaluate
the [fish] market, where we see several drawbacks to
invest.”
Dizon
said residents of Iloilo prefer to buy canned foods from
frozen foods.
The
umbrella organization of 75 food-storage firms is also
looking for alternative industries should the fishing
sector fail to take off.
CCAP is
keeping an eye on the dairy and meat-processing
industries of Iloilo. Also, the National Federation of
Hog Farmers Inc. earlier said the production of pork in
Bacolod is highly promising.
Apart
from Western Visayas, Dizon said the group is now
looking at Central and Northern Luzon as “staging areas”
for meat and vegetable production.
Presently, three cold-chain investments worth P600
million were poured into three key areas in Mindanao:
General Santos for pork processing related to the
“pork-in-a-box” program of the Department of
Agriculture; Cagayan de Oro to cater to the marine and
chicken market of the region; and Davao for fruits and
vegetables for export.
Earlier,
CCAP halted plans to establish facilities in Luzon
because of high energy prices.
Most of
its members were unable to access a program under the
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) that would have allowed
them to use electricity at a lower cost during a certain
period.
If CCAP
members continue operating in Luzon, Dizon said they
might be unable to shoulder the cost of operation and
might resort to retrenchment of workers.
“We have
done all the means to minimize the cost, but still power
is the single biggest expense that we have, and we
cannot just turn off our operations,” he said.
He said
that the group only estimated the cost of electricity at
P4 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), but Luzon rates for
commercial users are between P8 and P10.
On the
other hand, power rates in the Visayas and Mindanao are
currently at P4 to P5 per kWh.
CCAP
members, Dizon said, are unable to benefit from
Meralco’s Time-of-Use program, which would have saved
them a third of their power costs by using energy during
off-peak hours, like Sundays and nighttime. |
