Company Profile

Universal Robina Corporation (URC) is one of the largest branded consumer food
and beverage product companies in the Philippines and has a significant and
growing presence in the ASEAN markets. URC is among the Philippines' pioneers in
the industry. It has been in operations for over 50 years since John Gokongwei, Jr.
established Universal Corn Products, Inc, a cornstarch manufacturing plant in Pasig,
in 1954.
URC is engaged in a wide range of food-related businesses, including the
manufacture and distribution of branded consumer foods and is also in commodities
namely sugar million band refining and flour milling and in Agro industrial
businesses of farms mainly hogs and animal feed milling and related products.
URC is the leading branded snackfoods and beverage company in the Philippines.
URC is the first "Philippine Pan ASEAN Multinational" and has proven itself to be a
trailblazer in manufacturing with a strong and loyal consumer base. The company
has unswervingly showcased its innovation and excellence through its
groundbreaking products, wide distribution network, and effective marketing. This is
also evident in URC's formidable market leadership in snackfoods and beverages.
John Gokongwei Jr. established a vision for URC to become one of the leading pan
Asian players in snack foods and beverages. This vision is gradually being realized
as URC has managed to transform itself from a Philippine operation to a recognized
Asian multinational with full scale operations in eight countries outside the
Philippines, and soon in emerging markets like Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. In
addition, URC's products are already being exported to mainstream markets in the
US, Europe, Japan, Korea the Middle East and frontier markets in West Africa, like
Ghana and Nigeria.
URC has built three strong regional brands over the years; "Jack 'n Jill" for snack
foods, "C2" for ready to drink tea, and "Great Taste" for coffee, with these brands
becoming popular across the ASEAN region. URC's key to success is to build very
strong branding through a robust product innovation pipeline, consumer-centric
marketing and world-class manufacturing and supply chain management. URC will
continue to transform itself in line with the changing external dynamics in line with
increasing opportunities in Asia and beyond.
Source: http://www2.urc.com.ph/company_profile
Company History
Universal Robina Corporation (URC) traces its beginnings all the way back to 1954.
John Gokongwei was doing very well then as a trader/importer. He had learned the
trade when his father died before the war, and had worked hard through the war
and postwar years to prosper. However, while he thrived, he took a long hard look at
his company, and correctly predicted that trading would remain a low-margin
business.

On the other hand, a successful manufacturer controlling its own production and
distribution would command more profitable margins. Mr. John decided to construct
a corn milling plant to produce glucose and cornstarch, Universal Corn Products
(UCP), the first linchpin of the company that would become the URC we know today.
For a time, business was good. However, Mr. John was still looking ahead, working
with an eye towards the future. While the business was doing very well, it was
producing essentially a commodity, which a customer could easily access
elsewhere. To stay ahead in the game, Mr. John had to diversify by producing and
marketing his own branded consumer foods, similar to the multinational companies
in the country like Nestle and Procter & Gamble. In a sense, he wanted to put up the
first 'local' MNC, borne out of their best practices.
Thus, in 1961, Consolidated Food Corporation was born. Their first 'home run'
product was Blend 45, the first locally-manufactured coffee blend, dubbed as the
"Pinoy coffee". This became the largest-selling coffee brand in the market, even
beating market leaders Cafe Puro and Nescafe.
After coffee came chocolates. Nips, a panned chocolate was a staple of Filipino
childhood.
In 1963, Robina Farms started operations, beginning with poultry products. This was
also the beginning of the vertical integration of the Gokongwei businesses, as the
farms would be able to purchase feeds from UCP in the future. Later that decade,
Robichem Laboratories would be put up, to cater to the veterinary needs of the
farms businesses. Robina Farms expanded as it entered the hogs business in the
latter part of the 70s.
1966 saw the establishment of Universal Robina Corporation, which pioneered the
salty snacks industry through Chiz Curls, Chippy, and Potato Chips, under the "Jack
'n Jill" brand. Other snack products would follow over the years, as the company
successfully introduced market leaders like Pretzels, Piattos, and Maxx.
The coming decades saw more acquisitions and expansion. In the early 1970s, the
family entered the commodities business through the formation of Continental
Milling Corporation, for flour milling and production. The late 1980s brought the
acquisition of three sugar mills and refineries, under URC Sugar. These two
businesses provided stable cash flows, and allowed for further vertical integration in
the supply chain, to help URC weather any volatility in the cyclical commodities
markets. In line with this strategy, the late 1990s saw the entry of URC into the
plastics business, through URC Packaging.
While the businesses became more diversified, the companies were slowly
integrated in order to streamline and minimize costs. In 2005, the present structure
of the group was completed. All the different companies are now organized under
the Universal Robina Corporation umbrella, divided into 3 focused groups:
the Branded Consumer Food Group, comprised of BCFG Domestic (including
packaging) and Internationalthe Agro-Industrial group, comprised of Universal Corn

Products, Robina Farms, and Robichemand the Commodities group, with the Sugar
and Flour divisions
Source: http://www2.urc.com.ph/company_history