Food and beverage company RFM Corporation posted a net income of P 395 million for the first six months of the year, up by 193% from the net income for the same period last year.

RFM President and CEO Jose A. Concepcion III said that "this income level for the first six months is already close to hitting the full-year target of P480 million, confirming our expectations that we will surpass the 2010 target. This should lead us to upgrade our full-year projections this year."

The robust income was on back of net sales of over P 4.2 billion, or 10.2% growth for the first half of the year. Concepcion attributed the remarkable performance to the stream of successful product innovations in their branded businesses, backed by aggressive marketing campaigns.

"As we introduced our innovations, it became necessary to support them with big marketing campaigns to increase awareness while at the same time further build brand equity. We have likewise started to implement the P1.2 Billion capex program that includes capacity expansion and line-efficiencies to be able to serve the growing demand for our products. These efforts supported revenue growth with better cost structures and operating efficiencies, thus leading to higher operating margins this year.This is a profitable business model that will give RFM even better cashflows in the years to come", Concepcion said.

"The strong momentum continued. Just a month ago, we reported that our Selecta ice cream, which is a joint venture with Unilever, posted over 50% sales growth that pulledup the entire ice cream market category growth to 30%. This led to further strengthening of its dominant market leadership position to 68%, while competitors declined to 20 % and 7 % market shares, as of May 2010", according to Concepcion.

Another RFM product, Fiesta spaghetti, also performed well as it became the No. 1 spaghetti brand in the country, on the strength of its value-for-money proposition to consumers. Concepcion also credited the major improvements achieved in the operating performance of its Selecta milk and Swift meat groups.

"The continuing strong results into this year validate the decision of RFM to focus on food and beverage alone," Concepcion said. He cited the company's earlier moves to disengage itself from the property development and poultry businesses, both of which have been dividend out directly to the shareholders. This is to allow the RFM management to have greater focus in terms of time and resource allocation, while allowing those companies to pursue their respective growth plans.