AYALA Corp. plans to build more cold storage facilities nationwide as an indirect investment in support of the country's agriculture industry.

"We're doing it (investments) indirectly. If you take an industry like agriculture, there are many components to it," Ayala Chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala said last week, adding that logistics was one area of focus for the conglomerate.

Zobel de Ayala said they were building cold storage facilities and creating a network to help facilitate the movement of farm products and commodities across the Philippines.

"That's what we're trying to do, at least as one step," to provide logistical support to move goods and services efficiently around the country.

Speeding up the logistical supply chain while preserving farm products will benefit not just farmers or producers but the domestic economy as well, said Rene Almendras, president and CEO of AC Logistics Holding Corp., a wholly owned Ayala subsidiary.

"We actually executed a cold storage initiative, and we are also in the cold transport or cold chain improvement structures because that's where we think we can make a difference," Almendras added.

The spoilage rate in the country is around 40 percent, he said, making locally produced vegetables more expensive than those from other countries.

In June of last year, AC Logistics partnered with cold chain service provider Glacier Megafridge Inc. to open and operate a cold storage facility in Cagayan de Oro.

"When we started the project, vegetables were rotting in the streets because the farmers could not sell them, so they just threw them away," Almendras said in English and Filipino.

The new facility ensures that meat and vegetables from Bukidnon will remain fresh by the time the products reach Manila, he added.

"We're very happy with the fact that the cold storage facility we opened in Cagayan [has] reached 100 percent utilization in less than six months."

Almendras added that they were planning to put up more cold storage facilities in other parts of the country with an emphasis on location and pallet capacity.

In Cagayan de Oro, he said the facility built could handle 5,000 pallets. "We should have built one with a capacity of up to 10,000 pallets," he said in Filipino.

Ayala shares closed down 0.15 percent at P675 apiece last Friday.