While its exports to the United States (US) are already affected by newly imposed tariffs, the Po family’s Century Pacific Food Inc. (CNPF) will continue to expand its coconut water, tuna, and dairy capacities as these are its main engines for growth in the years to come.

In a media briefing after the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting, CNPF Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Teodoro Alexander T. Po said that while the US tariffs have created a lot of uncertainty and volatility, which is making buyers adopt a wait-and-see stance, the firm’s coconut water and tuna exports are already affected.

“It's actually already affecting our US businesses, because there's already a 10-percent minimum straight tariff being imposed on exports to the US. So our significant export of coconut water to the US is already affected by the US tariffs and some of our tuna and branded exports are also affected,” he noted.

Po said though that, “for now, there is a combination of pass-on and absorption that's happening in the market but it's quite volatile and unstable at this point. In about two weeks, there is supposed to be more definitive results from the US, but we don't know, and so we're waiting to see how that turns out, but we are currently already affected.”

The 90-day pause on higher US reciprocal tariffs, including the 17-percent levy for products from the Philippines, will lapse on July 9.

“The silver lining that we are hoping to get is that the Philippines is hoping to be better-treated tariff-wise than our other global competitors in the export business.

“Our government negotiators certainly have been giving full support to both our coconut and tuna exports, as far as lobbying and negotiating with the US government, and we commend the Philippine government for such a strong effort. We hope these turn out well, and we pray for good results.

“But for now, we're just going to have to live through this uncertainty, just like everybody else in the global trade and, well, we just hope for the best going forward,” he added.

In the meantime, CNPF Executive Chairman Christopher T. Po said they are continuing to expand their production capacity for coconut water, tuna, and dairy because these are still expected to post double-digit growth, especially in the domestic branded market.

He said CNPF is allotting ₱4 billion to ₱5 billion for capital expenditures (capex) this year since, outside of its coconut water exports, “the rest of our businesses are growing. Our dairy business continues to see a double-digit growth, our tuna business also this year, on the back of people being more conscious about health, also growing.”

“So, all of those dairy and tuna will require investment in new capacity…Some of those are continuation projects that carry over from last year,” Po said.

He noted though that the capex still does not include new investments for acquisitions, including acquisitions of additional facilities to ramp up its coconut water capacity.

“Recently, we disclosed that we have just signed a long-term agreement for our coconut business. So, we do plan to make further investments in capacity in coconut. That's on the back of what we announced last year, which was the investment of about $40 million in a new coconut factory in Misamis Occidental.

“So, on top of that, we do plan to invest further for capacity expansion, because we do see strong growth in in the coconut business, both for export and domestic.

“As far as acquisitions are concerned, there are a few ‘bolt-ons,’ those are of smaller sizes that we can just bolt onto our existing platforms,” said Po.