Peruvian San Fernando strives for quality

San Fernando was founded in 1948 by Julio Soichi Ikeda Tanimoto when it was launched as a duck breeding family enterprise. With the support of his children, Tanimoto began the breeding of broilers in 1963. A year later he opened his first retail store named San Fernando, which in 1994 became the Multimarkets San Fernando. By 1971 the company began breeding and marketing turkeys.

With the purpose of controlling the whole productive process and in order to guarantee the quality of its products, San Fernando decided to vertically integrate its business, beginning with the breeding of poultry for reproductive purposes, which allowed them to supply the broiler farms with company-bred baby chicks. Since then the San Fernando group has developed very successfully – building and expanding its feed production several times. In 1977, San Fernando began operations at its first feed plant. As a result of the benefits and good results of manufacturing feeds for its own farms and also the experience gained, the company decided to step into two new businesses: commercial eggs in 1979, and raising pigs in 1986.

Feed plant expansion
In 1977 the company started operating its first plant of balanced feed. Since 1990, Andritz Feed & Biofuel has continuously developed its co-operation with San Fernando, regularly supplying process equipment for feed production expansions. Andritz was also the preferred supplier when the production capacity of the San Fernando feed operations was expanded with two new lines, each with a capacity of 30 tonnes per hour in 2006. The supplies contained process line design and all key process technologies from the pellet mill to finished feed pellets including micro-fluid additions.

In 2010 San Fernando again decided to extend their production with three additional feed lines, each again with a capacity of 30 tph. The three new lines were installed and ready for feed production by the end of 2011. Each line included the planning-in design and supplies and commissioning of a hammermill (Optimill 1201), pellet mill with automatic roll adjustment and conditioner, counterflow cooler, crumbler, control sifter, liquid coating system and an enzyme addition system.

Turnover doubling

“For over 60 years, we have maintained an invaluable record and with our creativity to adapt to new technologies and modern business requirements we have exceeded the expectations of increasingly demanding customers. This enabled us to position ourselves as a leader, both in Peru and abroad,” states Julio Ikeda Matsukawa, President of the Board of San Fernando and son of the founder.

“In 2010, we set a challenging goal: to double our sales in five years. This rapid growth will be the result of doing and improving what we have always done while focusing on new tasks,” Matsukawa said in the company’s annual review. “The results have been encouraging. Our annual operating income in 2010 hit a record high at S164 million (€46.49). This constitutes exponential growth over last year’s result and exceeded our forecasts. Our sales growth also topped 5%, which allowed us to improve our gross margin. Total expenses fell 2% in 2010 with a noteworthy decrease in financial expenses, which in turn ensured more efficient commercial management.”Currently, San Fernando markets its products throughout Peru, with the following infrastructure: seven hatcheries, two feed mills, 104 chicken farms, eight turkey farms, five pig farms, 12 egg farms, two poultry processing plants and one meat processing plant.

In 1985, San Fernando grouped about ten companies into Chimu Agropecuaria in La Libertad, which was established as a manufacturing and marketing company for poultry operations. Since 2001, Chimu is building very modern farms with the best technology along approximately 700 km of the northern coast of Peru. Due to their quality focus it is possible to export to countries like Japan, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and El Salvador. Examples of export products are hatching eggs, chicks and poults as well as frozen turkeys and pigs.