F&N OPENS LIQUID-MILK PLANT IN THAILAND

       Malaysia-based Fraser & Neave Holdings hopes to double its revenue in Thailand and Indochina to two billion ringgit (Bt19.5 billion) within five years with the opening of its new hi-tech 250-million ringit "green field" liquid-ilk plant in the Rojana Industrial Estate.
       CEO Tan Ang Meng said sales revenue for F&N Dairies (Thailand) was expected to reach 900 million ringgit this year and that it was now ranked among the top five food-and-beverage companies in Thailand.
       "We have 45 per cent of dairy markets, and we see more potential, as there is a huge market of about 200 million people in Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam," Tan told Malaysian media after the company's board of directors visited the plant.
       He said the company, which acquired Nestle's canned-milk business in Thailand and Malaysia in 2007, had a significant presence here in the sweet-ened-condensed, evaporated, sterilised and UHT segments.
       Located on a 9.31-hectare site and 70 kilometres north of Bangkok, the plant has a total capacity of 3.5 million cans a day, or annual production of 11 million cases of product, and is fully integrated with an outsourced on-site can-manufacturing facility and logistics operations.
       Tan said the Thai plant would serve as a blueprint for F&N Dairies Malaysia's new 350 million ringgit plant at the Pulau Indah Halal Hub in Selangor, which is scheduled to being construction later this year.
       Total turnover of the group's dairies division leaped from 600 million ringgit in 2006 to 1.95 billion ringgit last year, Tan said, adding that sales revenue in the first nine months of this year reached 1.4 billion ringgit, whilw operating profits improved 50 per cent to 97.1 million ringgit.
       "The dairies division has clearly emerged as a major growth engine for the group and currently accounts for 51 per cent of sales revenue and 40 per cent of operating profits," he said.
       From purveyors of carbonated soft drinks, the F&N Group is one of Malaysia's diversified companies, with many top brands under its purview, including Coca-Cola.
       But Coca-Cola is not fully extending the bottling and distribution agreements with F&S when they expire next January 26.
       Instead, the US-based company decided to extend the agreements until September 2011.

       Sales revenue for F&N Dairies (Thailand) was expected to reach 900 million ringgit this year.