Singapore-based conglomerate Fraser & Neave has opened a canned milk plant in Thailand.
The site, located 70km north of Bangkok at the Rojana Industrial Park, will play a “pivotal” role in F&N’s ambitions to bolster its presence in Thailand and Indochina, the company said on Friday (17 June).
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F&N said the investment would also help it “seize export opportunities” in Indonesia, the Middle East and Africa.
Koh Poh Tiong, the CEO of F&N’s food and beverage division, said the opening of the plant was a “significant milestone in the annals of the F&N Group”. F&N, he said, had an ambition of becoming a “leading and innovative food and beverage FMCG player in the Asia-Pacific region”.
With the opening of the plant, F&N has set a target of doubling the revenues from its Thai dairy operations to S$700m (US$566.5m) by 2016.
Koh said F&N was already the “market leader” in the sterilised milk and evaporated milk categories and had “a leading position” in malt drinks and condensed milk.
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By GlobalData“The new state-of-the-art plant is equipped to serve a consumer base of over 200m, covering Thailand and Indochina. It will also supplement our export initiatives to other parts of Asia, as well as Africa and the Middle East,” Koh said.
He added: “The opening of the Rojana plant provides us with two critical ingredients for rapid growth – production capability and market opportunities.”
The plant has a total capacity of 3.5m cans a day and annual production of 24m cases.
F&N said the facility would act as a “blueprint” for a site being built in Malaysia. Construction on the site on the Malaysian island of Pulau Indah is due to be completed in the second half of the year and F&N said it would make the company the largest producer of canned milk in the world.
