AGRIBUSINESS firm Vitarich Corporation inaugurated last October 13 its P250-million state-of-the-art feedmill facility in Panacan, Davao City allowing the company to have a more efficient operation.
The feedmill plant is touted to be the company's newest modern automated plant, which can produce animal feeds at 10 tons per hour or equivalent to 100,000 bags of 50 kilos per bag.
Vitarich Corp. has partnered with Davao South Feedmill Corp. in this endeavor. Inaugurating the modern plant is aimed at helping Mindanao farmers in general by ensuring that they will get quality animal feeds products.
In her message, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, through her representative, Councilor Bai Halila Sudagar, congratulated the company and its partner as the facility's momentous expansion is a proof of the company's agricultural business growth in the city.
She also commended for not only contributing to the national economy of the country, but also support the Mindanao farmers to become business-oriented individuals as well.
The plant opens with a fully automated feedmill facility that requires only the pouring of raw materials by a staff onto its "mouth." All the other process, including the grain cracking will be automatically done by the machine itself.
The machine is distributed by Buhler, a worldwide provider of state-of-the-art technologies and methods for processing of grains for feeds.
Annabelle Go, the plant's officer-in-charge, said the machine is equipped with a sight glass, which makes the processing of feeds according to its exact formula even more accurate.
What makes this equipment a user-friendly is it is also equipped with built-in filter bag, that's why the process is neat, clean and dust-free.
The plant has seven floor levels with the "head" of the machine located at the 7th floor.
Go said that although it seems to be very difficult to handle, the personnel who will operate the machine will only be at the ground floor, since it is only on pouring raw materials that human intervention is required in the feeds manufacturing process.
Vitarich President and Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Manuel Sarmiento thanked the Department of Agriculture for supporting the endeavor even as it has faced challenges in the past months, just recently the serious problem posed by the bird flu.
"We acknowledge and thank the timely and acting fast by the Department of Agriculture in containing public reaction to the scare," he said.
He said the facility is another proof of the company's determination to alleviate the farmers' standard of living.
Other guests during the inauguration are Vitarich Corp.'s board of directors led by its chairman, Jose Vicente Bengzon III, President and CEO Ricardo Manuel Sarmiento, EVP and Corporate Management Services Director/Treasurer Stephanie Nicole Sarmiento-Garcia, officers and employees, Davao South Feedmill Corp.'s board of directors, officers and employees, and DA-Davao Regional Director Ricardo Onate, representing DA Sec. Manuel Piñol.