D&L Industries Inc., the country’s top specialty food ingredients and oleochemicals producer, aims to put the Philippines on the map as a quality manufacturing hub for sustainable, natural and organic products once its new plant in Batangas starts operations in the middle of 2023.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, D&L said it is gearing up towards launching a full range of shelf-ready products for its export customers, made from coconut oil, for the personal and baby care, cosmetics and beauty care, household cleaning, health and nutrition, and food and vegetable oils categories that are sustainable, natural, and organic.

With its upcoming state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Batangas, D&L is spearheading a paradigm shift in its approach towards sustainability.

With the new capabilities that the Batangas plant will bring, D&L aims to offer turnkey solutions to customers that are both economically and environmentally friendly.

D&L envisions empowering brands globally to make a meaningful shift towards high impact sustainability initiatives in the manufacturing of their products by giving them the option to buy direct from source.

The direct from source approach simply means converting raw materials into finished goods in the country of raw material origin, instead of going through multi-leg production stages which usually happen across different locations in the globe.

This naturally translates into simpler logistics, less wastage, lower costs, higher efficiency, and as such, significantly cutting down the carbon footprint (C02) of the entire supply chain.

Starting mid-2023, D&L’s Batangas plant is set to expand the manufacturing capabilities of the company’s food, oleochemicals, and consumer products ODM segments.

It will operate under wholly-owned subsidiaries Natura Aeropack Corporation (NAC) and D&L Premium Foods Corp (DLPF). This plant will allow the vertical integration of sourcing, formulation, packaging, OEM/ODM, and export capabilities, enabling D&L to offer a one stop shop, direct from source manufacturing solutions to global brands.

Being in a Philippine Export Zone Authority (PEZA) location, D&L’s Batangas plant is required to maintain at least 50% export revenue contribution to be able to take advantage of PEZA tax incentives. As such, the said facility will be focused on developing new markets.

Coconut oil continues to gain traction globally as a sustainable, natural, and organic substitute for many petroleum or palm-oil based applications.

With D&L’s vertically-integrated plant in Batangas, the company’s goal is to bring home the higher value-added processing of coconut oil, and in the process significantly reduce the total carbon footprint of its entire supply chain.

This initiative offers a plug-and-play solution for global brand owners who are looking to beef up their sustainable product offerings.

Under this strategy, D&L will primarily target export customers who do not have the proximity to the source and instead would traditionally go through multiple layers of production before their products get into its final form and ready for end-customer purchase or consumption.

“As the world shifts toward more sustainable consumption, we believe that having truly sustainable operations and product offerings are the way forward. There’s a lot of interest in the space and consumers are demanding businesses for their fair share of efforts in preserving the only planet that we have,” NAC President Dean Lao, Jr. said.

He added that, “Our Batangas facility and our high impact sustainability efforts put us in a very good position to capitalize on these trends. We believe that it is the next leg of growth for the company.”

“We see the coming decade as transformational for us, both from a business and sustainability perspective. It is our advocacy to stay relentless in developing products that better lives while staying attuned to the needs of the planet. We see this as one of the great secrets for a lasting business,” Lao noted.

In addition to the environmental impact D&L aims to have, the group’s corporate social responsibility (CSR), through its partner foundation Lao Foundation, shares its blessings through educational scholarships, livelihood training, and values formation programs with the aim of uplifting the lives of Filipino coconut farmers.