Pilmico’s Inclusive Corn Sourcing Program Wins At Inaugural Europa Awards
Aboitiz Eyes
Pilmico Foods Corporation was among the winners at the first Europa Awards given by the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP). The company took the prize in the Sustainable Food and Nutrition category for Project Silk, its inclusive agribusiness program that provides end-to-end support to community enterprises to transform them into efficient, profitable, and growing businesses.
Tristan Aboitiz, President and CEO of Pilmico Foods Corporation, accepted the award at the virtual awarding ceremony held on June 10.
“We started Project Silk back in 2017, with the goal to support and empower local corn farmers in Bukidnon by transforming their livelihood into a more sustainable and profitable endeavor,” he explained. “The idea was to directly source yellow corn from local farmers’ cooperatives in an effort to secure a portion of our corn requirements for our feed milling business, and to do so at values that reflected the hard work put in by the farmers and their families to raise those crops and get them ready for consumption.”
TRA paid tribute to the project’s beneficiary, Mantibugao Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Farmers Cooperative (MARBFC), sharing that its success has led to the launch of similar initiatives in Lanao del Norte and Misamis Oriental.
Project Silk also facilitated learning sessions to help develop the financial, entrepreneurial, and managerial competencies of its partners in order to improve their overall business acumen.
Pilmico is set to expand Project Silk to link more local corn consumers to a greater number of farmer cooperatives and associations as it works with fellow stakeholders in the government’s Pilipinas Kontra Gutom (PKG) initiative. Being a Partner for Growth for its community, the company continues to improve on its alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals — more specifically, SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) — by contributing to the country’s food security while strengthening its environmental, social, governance (ESG) performance and drive positive change.
I want to thank our team members who have spent many days of their lives working to ensure the success of this program...you that truly deserve the recognition for this. I am very proud of the work we’ve done so far and we hope that [the project’s] successful roll-out in Mindanao will serve as a model for more of these kinds of partnerships being established around the Philippines in the future.
– Tristan Aboitiz, President & Chief Executive Officer, Pilmico
According to the ECCP, the Europa Award for Sustainable Food and Nutrition recognizes companies that have contributed to the enhancement of the food industry by offering innovative products and services that promote sustainable food systems in the Philippines.
The ECCP’s Europa Awards seeks to promote and recognize companies with “exceptional performance and contributions in promoting sustainability” in keeping with global standards and the Philippine Development Plan.
