1.1 COMPANY NAME : UNIVERSAL ROBINA CORPORATION
1.2 ADDRESS : 13 E. Rodriguez Jr. Avenue, Bagong Ilog, Pasig City 1600, Philippines
TEL : (632) 2905060
FAX : (632) 6713959
EMAIL : Judy.Ly@urc.com.ph
WEBSITE : www.urc.com.ph
1.3 TYPE OF BUSINESS :
Importer, Manufacturer, Distributor
1.4 COMPANY DETAIL
Year of Establishment : 57 years
Turnover : PHP 800 Billion
No. of Employee : 10,000
1.5 MAIN PRODUCT :
Snack foods, cakes, biscuits, candies, chocolates, animal feeds, glucose and soya products, hogs and poultry farming, production and distribution of animal health products, noodles, as well as flour and sugar milling and distribution and packaging.
1.6 VISITED PERSON
Name : MS. JUDY LY
Designation : Strategic Sourcing Manager
2.1 COMPANY AND PRODUCT OVERVIEW :
Universal Robina Corporation (URC) traces its beginnings all the way back to 1954. John Gokongwei was doing very well then as a trader/importer. He had learned the trade when his father died before the war, and had worked hard through the war and postwar years to prosper. However, while he thrived, he took a long hard look at his company, and correctly predicted that trading would remain a low-margin business.
On the other hand, a successful manufacturer controlling its own production and distribution would command more profitable margins. Mr. John decided to construct a corn milling plant to produce glucose and cornstarch, Universal Corn Products (UCP), the first linchpin of the company that would become the URC we know today.
For a time, business was good. However, Mr. John was still looking ahead, working with an eye towards the future. While the business was doing very well, it was producing essentially a commodity, which a customer could easily access elsewhere. To stay ahead in the game, Mr. John had to diversify by producing and marketing his own branded consumer foods, similar to the multinational companies in the country like Nestle and Procter & Gamble. In a sense, he wanted to put up the first ‘local’ MNC, borne out of their best practices.
Thus, in 1961, Consolidated Food Corporation was born. Their first ‘home run’ product was Blend 45, the first locally-manufactured coffee blend, dubbed as the “Pinoy coffee”. This became the largest-selling coffee brand in the market, even beating market leaders Caf? Puro and Nescafe.
After coffee came chocolates. Nips, a panned chocolate was a staple of Filipino childhood.
In 1963, Robina Farms started operations, beginning with poultry products. This was also the beginning of the vertical integration of the Gokongwei businesses, as the farms would be able to purchase feeds from UCP in the future. Later that decade, Robichem Laboratories would be put up, to cater to the veterinary needs of the farms businesses. Robina Farms expanded as it entered the hogs business in the latter part of the 70s.
1966 saw the establishment of Universal Robina Corporation, which pioneered the salty snacks industry through Chiz Curls, Chippy, and Potato Chips, under the “Jack ‘n Jill” brand. Other snack products would follow over the years, as the company successfully introduced market leaders like Pretzels, Piattos, and Maxx.
The coming decades saw more acquisitions and expansion. In the early 1970s, the family entered the commodities business through the formation of Continental Milling Corporation, for flour milling and production. The late 1980s brought the acquisition of three sugar mills and refineries, under URC Sugar. These two businesses provided stable cash flows, and allowed for further vertical integration in the supply chain, to help URC weather any volatility in the cyclical commodities markets. In line with this strategy, the late 1990s saw the entry of URC into the plastics business, through URC Packaging.
While the businesses became more diversified, the companies were slowly integrated in order to streamline and minimize costs. In 2005, the present structure of the group was completed. All the different companies are now organized under the Universal Robina Corporation umbrella, divided into 3 focused groups:
- the Branded Consumer Food Group, comprised of BCFG Domestic (including packaging) and International
- the Agro-Industrial group, comprised of Universal Corn Products, Robina Farms, and Robichem
- and the Commodities group, with the Sugar and Flour divisions
2.2 SOURCE OF SUPPLY AND IMPORT FROM :
China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand
2.3 PRODUCTS IMPORTED FROM THAILAND :
Tapioca and corn starch, flavoring and feedmills
2.4 PRODUCTS INTERESTED TO IMPORT FROM THAILAND :
Vegetable and fruit concentrates and purees.
Universal Robina Corporation (URC) has expanded steadily outside the country. At present, URC maintains manufacturing facilities in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia and has a strong foothold in the countries it presently operates in. URC products, under the “Jack ’n Jill” megabrand, are widely available in most trade channels in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and Hong Kong.
The most established international operations of URC are in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Leading market share positions are attained in these countries in several niche product categories.
Universal Robina Corporation (URC) has been importing raw materials for their snack food from Thailand amounting to US$200,000 per annum which include tapioca and corn starch , flavorings and feedmills. At present, the company is interested to import vegetable and fruit purees or concentrates for their production of juices in the Philippines. The company also attends Thailand International Food Exhibition every year to source for more products as well as the latest food products.
Source : http://www.depthai.go.th