Agriculture

Bounty Agro Ventures, Inc. (BAVI) Bounty Agro Ventures, Inc. (BAVI) is the largest rotisserie chicken company in the Philippines. The main office of the company is located in Pasig City, Manila and has over 900 employees. With almost 2,000 retail outlets, BAVI is the Philippines’ #1 rotisserie chicken company. It is also the country’s second largest poultry integrator, together with sister company Bounty Fresh Foods, Inc. (BFFI). BAVI’s retail brands include Chooks-to-Go, Uling Roasters, Adobo Connection, and HeiHei. The company also distributes dressed chicken products in supermarkets, wet markets, hotels, and restaurants outside Metro Manila under the Bounty Fresh Chicken brand. In 2017, BAVI became the first Filipino poultry company to produce Zero Antibiotics Chicken using the No Antibiotics Ever chicken technology. The company was named Most Innovative Company of the Year by the Asia CEO Awards in 2018, and was given a Gold Accreditation from Investors in People for its outstanding people management practices in 2019. [165]

Biotech Farms Incorporated Biotech Farms Incorporated is a world-class agri-business company and the leading supplier of high-quality pork and egg products in Mindanao. As a result of their relentless and uncompromising pursuit to quality and food safety, Better Pork and Better Farms are the major products marketed by the company. Biotech Farms commenced operations in 2001 as a multiplier farm of a US-based genetics company, with an initial stock of fewer than 1,000 sows imported from Australia and added few hundred of pure-bred sows from Quebec, Canada. Following the commercial success of their swine farm expansion, Biotech Farms established its first poultry layer farm in 2010, with an initial population of a few hundred-thousand layers. Since then, their poultry population has increased to over one million layers, allowing the company to consistently supply products throughout Mindanao. Operations of their agro-industrial complex commenced in 2012 located in South Cotabato with the goal of ensuring strict quality-control standards in their feed production and providing employment to over 600 locals. All of the feed used at Biotech Farms is formulated in secure feed mills, closely monitoring the entire production line to ensure that any mycotoxins in the feed are totally eliminated, and producing more than 500 tons of quality-controlled feed per day. The Agro-Industrial Complex also houses a state-of-the-art Biomass Renewable Energy Project, which currently produces over 7 megawatts of renewable bioenergy from the rice hulls and corn cobs leftover from their corn and paddy grain processing operations. [166]

Dole Philippines Inc. Dole Philippines Inc. is organized under the name Dolefil. Established in 1963, it is a subsidiary of the Dole Food Company which is an American-Irish agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Ireland. Dolefil operates a fully integrated plantation and industrial facility in Polomolok, South Cotabato in Mindanao, for the production of fresh and processed pineapple for the export market. It also has operations in General Santos City, Municipality of Surallah in South Cotabato, and in the Municipalities of Maramag and Talakag in Bukidnon. The company directly employs about 4,600 regular employees. The company operates on about 15,000 hectares as its base plantation. About 8,000 hectares of which is being leased by the company from the Dolefil Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperative (DARBC), and about 5,000 hectares is also being leased from 1,600 individual landowners. Another 5,000 hectares are grower plantations. There are about 1,500 pineapple growers belonging to five (5) grower cooperatives. The grower program ensures the growers better return compared to farming traditional products like rice and corn which suffer from market price fluctuations and poor post-harvest facilities. [167] [168]

Alson Aquaculture Corporation Alsons Aquaculture Corporation takes pride as the Philippines’ largest processor and exporter of premium quality bangus and many other processed seafood products. The company started in aquaculture in 1988 and developed and managed their processing plant and fully integrated farm–to–market fish processing operation which is based in Sarangani Bay, Southern Mindanao, where seafood is abundant. The company is expanding their global reach with 70% of their products exported to international markets and the rest are marketed and distributed to local retail and foodservice customers. The company strictly complies with the international food safety standards and they are certified compliant to ISO 22000:2005, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) and HALAL. Alsons Aquaculture Corporation’s headquarters is located at Maribulan Alabel, Sarangani Province and has more than 300 employees. [169]