Liberty Commodities receives ISO certification

Liberty Commodities Corp. (LCC) has achieved a major milestone in its operations after clinching a rare package of the coveted global standards certification, or the ISO, for its food, plastics and culinary kitchen divisions.

LCC, whose flagship is Liberty Flour Mills (LFM) of the Maya brand of flour mixes, secured the ISO 9002 from SGS Philippines, the local unit of the Swiss-based SGS Group, for its Quality Management System – or the entire production, support and administration processes in its Cupang, Muntinlupa plant.

The ISO seal was stamped on the company’s flour division, plastics division and the Maya Culinary Kitchen, particularly on the Shipboard Culinary Course, making it the only ISO-certified training institute in the country.

The flour division consists of the processing of flours and blending of mixes for bread, pastries and bakery products. The plastics division, meanwhile, manufactures two main products: polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and high density polypropelene (HDP), both used in a wide variety of applications ranging from plastic water bottles to electrical and water pipes and conduits.

"We now have global standards for quality. We are aligned with international standards. We have been exporting but we are still working out on the shelf life (for good). For the pipes, we are not going to export but we can now compete head on with imported pipes," LCC president Felix Maramba Jr. said.

LCC, one of the top 500 companies in the Philippines, is part of the Liberty complex – a conglomerate of companies involved in a diverse field of businesses that include food, animal feeds, agribusiness, chemicals, plastics, real estate, engineering services and biogas consultancy.

Its flagship LFM alone generates sales of well over P1 billion a year from its wide mix of product lines such as flour and bakery mixes of the well-known Maya brand, especially the hotcake mixes.

LFM is also the Philippine licensee of General Mills Inc. of the US since 1986, marketing the latter’s Betty Crocker product mixes.

As part of its expansion plans, Maramba said LCC will continue to forge business relations with foreign companies, having placed itself in a stronger position with the ISO certification.

"Considering its management capability, financial stability, commitment and vision, LCC is in a strong position to import and distribute foreign products at the most opportune time when ASEAN is gearing up for its own trade agreement known as the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA), thereby providing foreign companies the best opportunity to tap this vast, promising market," Maramba said.