Vitarich pushes through plan to enter hog industry

MANILA, Philippines — Listed poultry and feed manufacturer Vitarich Corp. has restarted efforts to diversify into the hog industry, with initial piglet production eyed in the first half of next year.

The company intends to expand into hog production with the view that the hog industry is on its way to recovery after suffering from African swine fever (ASF), Vitarich president and CEO Rocco Sarmiento said in an interview during the company’s stockholder’s meeting last week.

“We’ve reestablished efforts to get into hog (production) primarily through piglet production. That should be available next year,” he said, noting the first wave of output should come by the end of the first half of 2024.

“Basically, we believe that the industry will be recovering and we would like to participate in that recovery,” Sarmiento said.

The plan to go into hog production was originally slated in 2021, but the spread of ASF prompted the company to put this plan in the backburner until the swine industry recovers.

“In view of this, we have delayed our diversification in hog growing and production until the ongoing threats of the disease have been fully resolved. In the meantime, we focus on biosecurity measures by initiating…campaigns to raise awareness and support on-farm biosecurity practices,” Sarmiento said.

Four years after the ASF outbreak in 2019, the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) last month declared that the field trials for the vaccine from Vietnam were successful and that it plans to import 600,000 doses once the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issues a certificate of product registration.

But even without the vaccine, Vitarich is bent on pushing through with its piglet production by next year with biosecurity measures in place.

“With or without the vaccine, we have plans to ramp up output by next year. If the vaccines come, we can be more aggressive,” Sarmiento said.

“Right now, what we’re doing is we’ve intensified and redesigned our biosecurity protocols.   But the vaccine will really be great for the industry,” he said.

The company is strategically picking locations for multiple small-scale hog farms, which will have a maximum of 200 sows each.

Its site in Bulacan has started producing sows, which will be relocated in the new sites.

“It’s the offspring of that farm which we will use to expand into another site, but we’re going to do small sites, not a big farm with a lot of hogs, because if ASF hits, we don’t want to lose everything. So, our strategy is multiple small sites,” Sarmiento said.

In diversifying its production, Vitarich looks to replicate what it did in its poultry business – which is selling day-old chicks to farmers along with its poultry feeds.

“Our investments are primarily for piglet production, then we will be selling the piglets to the farmers with our feeds. It’s the same model we have for the chicken. We’re just going to replicate because it’s been working for us,” Sarmiento said.

Vitarich is one of the pioneering firms in poultry and feed manufacturing in the country, adhering to world quality standards since 1950.