May 10, 2023

From Business World

AYALALAND Logistics Holding Corp. (ALLHC) is targeting to expand the total gross leasable area of its warehouse portfolio to 500,000 square meters (sq.m.) by 2025, its top official said.

“Our target is to increase our warehousing portfolio from 300,000 sq.m. to 500,000 sq.m. by 2025,” ALLHC President and Chief Executive Officer Jose Emmanuel H. Jalandoni said on the first day of the Philippine Stock Exchange’s Strengthening Access and Reach program on Tuesday.

To date, the company has 309,000 sq.m. of gross leasable area, which has multinational and local tenants that include DB Schenker, Entrego Express Corp., Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd., Badan Building Materials Corp., and Lemcon Philippines, Inc.

ALLHC’s warehouses are located in Biñan at Laguna Technopark; Naic at Cavite Technopark; Porac, Pampanga at Alviera Industrial Park; Santo Tomas, Batangas; and Calamba, Laguna.

Mr. Jalandoni said that e-commerce firms, third-party logistics warehouses and fast-moving consumer goods today need modern logistics supply suitable to their operations.

“The facilities that we are building are custom-built for the needs of the market as against what you typically see in the Philippine market, which is older and more traditional warehousing,” he said.

“There’s a lot of improvement that needs to be done and we think we can be a strong player in this evolution,” he added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jalandoni said that ALLHC is also keen on expanding its cold storage portfolio by four times by 2025. He said the firm wants to not just double “but hopefully, quadruple our footprint in this market.”

“Why are we interested in cold storage? Essentially because demand is quite high for institutional users, supermarkets, convenience store restaurants, and food manufacturers,” he added.

The company currently has a total of 10,300 pallet positions in its three cold storage facilities all located in Laguna. Its clients include brands such as Carmen’s Best, Nestlé, Ecolab, Bayer, and North Star Meat Merchants.

According to Mr. Jalandoni, the Philippines currently has a low refrigeration capacity per capita at 0.04 cubic meter versus its peers in Vietnam and South Korea, which has a capacity of 0.17 cubic meter and 0.28 cubic meter, respectively. — Justine Irish D. Tabile