By Othel V. Campos

Tomato paste producer Northern Food Corp. plans to go into finished products by putting up a processing plant that will add value to the company.

?What we?re doing now is we?re trying to consolidate particular clients who might want to partner with us. The processing plant is not at all big but we need all the help we could get to make this work,? said company president Marcus Luis Quintos.

Northern Foods declined to disclose the cost of the plant pending firm commitments from prospective partners.

The new processing plant is expected to process as much as 40 to 50 tons a month of tomato paste for the production of tomato products like juice, sauce and catsup.

Northern Foods has toll packaging arrangements and has been indirectly serving customers like Jollibee, McDonald?s, KFC and Mister Donut for the fastfood restaurants, and Unilever, Del Monte ( Philippines ), Nestl? Philippines Inc., Heinz (of UFC Philippines Inc.), San Miguel Foods Corp./Purefoods Poultry, Purefoods (of Hormel), Hunt?s (of Universal Robina Corp.) and Monde Nissin .

?Now, we want to be able to generate direct clients. I guess we?re in a better position to offer quality, low-priced tomato products since we are at the top of the business,? said Quintos, adding it was the only way to save the company from bankruptcy.

Northern Foods has the biggest tomato paste processing facility in the country with a capacity of 500 MT per day. It supplies 25 percent of the country?s15 million ton annual tomato paste requirement. The balance is filled by imports from China and Taiwan.

The company has been struggling to keep up with cheap tomato product imports from China.