Century Pacific renews ties with Vita Coco for P14B
Century Pacific Food Inc. (CNPF) will continue to supply coconut water to global brand Vita Coco for five more years in a deal worth P14 billion, a key development in its effort to grow its export business despite global tariff tensions.
In a stock exchange filing on Monday, the Po family-led company said the deal extended an agreement forged in 2024 covering 90 million liters of coconut water.
CNPF, the maker of Century Tuna, Argentina Corned Beef and Angel Evaporada, marked its first entry into the coconut category in 2012, also through a partnership with Vita Coco.
Today, it is Vita Coco’s largest coconut water supplier.
“We value our long-standing partnership with Vita Coco—a win-win partnership that has grown meaningfully over the past decade,” said Noel Tempongko Jr., CNPF vice president and general manager of the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) coconut business.
“We are pleased to extend our collaboration and look forward to scaling our collective impact across both our businesses, our consumers and the communities we serve,” Tempongko added.
As a result of its long-term collaboration with Vita Coco, CNPF took over Coco Harvest Inc., a producer of coconut water, coconut milk, desiccated coconut and virgin coconut oil in Misamis Oriental province, for $40 million.
CNPF also recently began its P2.5-billion expansion plan for a coconut processing facility in Mindanao, mostly to boost its export business. The investment is expected to help raise the facility’s capacity by about 25 percent.
Teodoro Po, CNPF vice chair, president and CEO, earlier said they were “getting more and more” demand in the United States and Southeast Asia.
Should this trend continue, Po said they could double current capacity in the next five to seven years. He did not disclose exact figures.
In the first quarter, CNPF saw its earnings climb by 11 percent to P1.9 billion on the back of gains from the branded business.
The OEM tuna and coconut export segment, meanwhile, had a “slight pullback” coming from a high base in 2024. At the same time, an “unfavorable commodity cycle” negatively impacted the units’ performance.
Despite its exposure to the US market—cornering around 5 percent of its total sales—CNPF earlier told the Inquirer the new tariffs in the US would not significantly impact business.
CNPF chair Christopher Po explained that they were “protected by some long-term contracts with a long-standing US customer.”
“Furthermore, we think that [the Philippines] can be competitive in light of the new tariff schemes levied on all exports to the US,” he added. “At this point in time, it’s too early to predict impact but we’ll be watching out for softer demand and other supply chain impacts.”
Currently, CNPF exports canned tuna and coconut-based products to parts of North America, Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Oceania.
