With a new future in sight after Coca-Cola and Arca Continental’s acquisition, the group pursues its short term goals flanked by its two new allies, developing new products and raising the stock price of all involved. An example of this innovation is the entrance of Snacks into the Toni product line.
During an interview, the current CEO of Holding Tonicorp Jorge Medina, said: “Our commitment is to continue to invest to offer healthy foods for our consumer. Our greatest challenge is carrying that legacy of quality and to innovate brands for a family-friendly product.” Medina is an entrepreneur and finance specialist with more than ten years experience in the dairy industry.
Growing with the community
Holding Tonicorp has distinguished itself by being socially responsible in the communities where it operates. For 40 years they have grown close to the heart of Ecuador. This vision of setting out side by side with the consumer has been adopted by Coca-Cola and Arca Continental as part of their leadership missions.
“Tonicorp and its subsidiaries have persisted historically, they’ve aspired to be a leading company in innovation and high quality products, satisfying the needs of the consumers with the highest quality and benefit standards,” said Jose Luis Vivar, Holding Tornicorp CFO.
Vivar is part of the new administration brought in after the joint venture by Arca Continental and Coca-Cola. The financial director has more than 20 years of experience handling corporate finances and has formed part of the Coca-Cola family since 2001.
Coping with competition from its main Ecuadorean competitor, Unilever, the holding has consolidated its presence and relationship with the consumer with its various brands. All of the Holding Tonicorp companies are original to Ecuador, which means they have the local experience to differentiate them and win the domestic client’s loyalty.
Its goal for 2015 is to consolidate its offerings as a merged business, in all of the value added dairy segments (yogurts, flavored milk, functional milk, cheese, desserts, oatmeal, ice cream, etc.) active in Ecuador.
Human capital
Holding Tornicorp’s workplace culture has been recognized by large international firms such as Great Places to Work, which placed the firm third best place to work in Ecuador, on its most recent edition. “We appreciate that business vision where human capital is a priority,” said the CEO.
Other factors that made Holding an excellent place to work were: employee expertise based on constant training initiatives by management, commitment to quality at the operator level, and a teamwork culture, among many others.
“There are excellent practices in the management of human resources at Tonicorp which we want to continue and encourage,” said Vivar.
Joined to the land
This group of companies has developed a program under the inclusive business model, in this way contributing to the overcoming of poverty, incorporating small milk producers into the supply chain. This is achieved through win-win partnerships, sustainability, training and help adopting new technologies. In addition to the training and technical support, holistic systems have also been incorporated which improve productivity and efficiency depending on the conditions on a farm. This is how Sistemas Silvopastoriles, Pastoreo Rotacional Intensivo and Silo de Forrajes have been implemented.
“Incorporating ourselves into this network allows us to maintain a valuable relationship with a long chain of businesses. We are very self-aware of this dependence relationship with agriculture and we hope to play an important role as advisors,” added Vivar.
“A key part of our supply chain is through loyal ranchers who work with us. Therefore, we want to see a growth in the cattle breeder sector in our country. Our demand for milk will grow as we grow. The growth in the dairy industry in recent years has been six percent. We expect to exceed this number,” stated Medina.
Beyond the supply-partner chain
A purpose of the company is to build synergies with suppliers to create a solid relationship as a foundation for our supply chain.
“We have very tight dependence relationships with suppliers of strategic goods like sugar, resin and technology,” added the financial director.
We prefer to work with a stream of direct suppliers instead of third-party whole sellers,” added the general director.
Social initiatives
Building on its relationship with the Ecuadorean community, Holding Tonicorp has increased its support of athletics. It sponsors teams in track and field and boating.
In health they organize educational forums with patient communities to discuss the benefits of consuming milk, the role of calcium in the growth cycle, etc.
Some of its ecological efforts include the upgrading of water treatment systems to make it more practical to make use of the resource as well to assist in the reforestation of areas where the biodiversity has been harmed.
Five-year outlook
Holding Tonicorp wants to consolidate itself in Ecuador and expand its product portfolio. “We believe that there remains a segment per capita in the Ecuadorian market that we can capture and our principal goal is to finish perfecting this offering of products,” said the CFO.
Another of its plans is to finish the construction of the dairy mega-plant in the city of Guayaquil, which will replace the two existing ones and will establish itself as one of the most innovative in Latin America, consolidating the group’s business at the national level for the next 20 years. This project will use state-of-the-art machinery and automation to perform best-practices manufacturing of dairy derivatives. The building will also be LEED certificated and will be operational in 2016.
As far as globalizing their brands, the current board plans on exporting to other countries in Latin America, to the United States and Europe.
“We are looking into entering even more remote countries, like Korea, where we currently have a pilot program,” said the CEO.