Unilever Philippines has opened a new collaborative manufacturing facility in Mandaue City, expanding its production capabilities for home care products and strengthening its supply chain across the Visayas and Mindanao.

The 1,600-square-meter facility will manufacture liquid home care products such as Surf fabric conditioners and Fabclean liquid detergents to meet rising demand in the region.

Company officials said the Cebu facility is Unilever Philippines’ first manufacturing site outside Luzon and forms part of the company’s strategy to bring production closer to key consumer markets.

“Collaborating with local partners is essential to building a more agile and resilient local supply chain. It allows us to serve Filipino households faster and efficiently, all while fostering livelihood opportunities and strengthening regional economies,” said Van Nguyen-Thi-Bich, general manager for home care at Unilever Greater Asia.

The facility aims to shorten delivery times, reduce logistics costs and cut emissions by minimizing the need to ship products from Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao.

It will also adopt the refreshed Unilever Manufacturing System, a digital production framework that integrates analytics, automation and artificial intelligence to improve factory efficiency.

Navdeep Singh, head of supply chain for Unilever Philippines and vice president for customer operations in Greater Asia, said the facility supports the company’s broader push to expand its national production footprint.

“This collaborative manufacturing facility expands a more distributed production footprint across the country, supporting Filipino communities and strengthening consumer goods industry. It enables faster logistics and quicker access for consumers to Unilever products while reducing the overall carbon footprint,” Singh said.

Unilever products currently reach nine out of 10 Filipino households, according to the company.

The expansion comes as the Philippines continues to be one of the fastest-growing fast-moving consumer goods markets in Southeast Asia, with strong demand across beauty, personal care, food and home care segments.