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In an era where Asia’s food and agriculture landscape faces mounting pressures—from volatile raw material costs to the urgent need for sustainable systems—evolving continuously to remain resilient and competitive has never been more essential.
Adapting to this rapid transformation, regional food and agribusiness player Aboitiz Foods is cultivating a culture that empowers its people to create practical, scalable solutions to real-world challenges that improve performance across the production cycle – aligned with its massive transformative purpose of sustainably feeding Asia’s growth from mill to meal.
This commitment comes to life through The Mill, a company-wide product innovation competition built on the core values of teamwork and innovation. Short for The Mill-ion Dollar Idea, The Mill, which started in 2024, encourages team members to ideate and explore forward-thinking concepts, collaborate across borders and functions, and turn everyday observations into meaningful breakthroughs that can enhance products and services of the company.
Winners of the 2025 The Mill innovation challenge talk about the journey behind their winning ideas and their hopes to nourish the future of food.
For the Indonesia team – composed of Rifki Putra Adimulia, Yasmin Firdaus, Krisna Yulian Irwanto, and Satria Al Yuda – winning first place was the result of deep technical expertise and confidence in their data-driven approach.
Their winning project, titled “Optimization of Liver Function to Boost Broiler Performance,” explored the use of bile acid as an alternative raw material to improve fat digestion efficiency for broiler poultry. This addressed Indonesia’s rising raw material costs while enhancing feed efficiency—a solution grounded in applied nutrition science.
Adimulia, Assistant Manager for Nutrition Research and Development, knew their idea can contribute to something bigger. “The MIll is a platform where we can showcase our ideas that help improve our products and performance, ultimately benefiting the company.”
“It challenged us,” shared Firdaus, Junior Nutritionist from Gold Coin’s Bekasi mill, adding, “But it gave us a chance to collaborate with other departments, and turn those ideas into real impact for our business.”
For Irwanto, a Junior Nutritionist from the Surabaya mill, innovation is about growth. “If we keep using the same methods while challenges change, we won’t grow,” he said, adding, “Innovation motivates us to improve and stay competitive.”
Yuda, a Junior Nutritionist based in Medan, hopes that their project extends beyond the Indonesia operations. “It was fulfilling to share our success story with our leaders. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share our innovation, and hopefully, we can also implement it in other countries as well.”
The team credits their top finish to having an “Always Better” mindset – a behavior that fuels Aboitiz Foods’ high-performance culture, encouraging team members to think creatively, continually seek improvement, and make informed decisions based on data.
Firdaus and Irwanto teamed up on another innovation to help address a daily operational challenge: rising raw material costs. With corn prices surging, the pressure was on to maintain feed quality without passing costs on to farmers.
By reimagining fast-food fried chicken coating to a “snack meal,” they developed a practical, cost-efficient solution turning waste into a viable, high-energy alternative source for feed, which was eventually implemented across Gold Coin mills in Indonesia.
Irwanto shared, “As nutritionists, we always have to look for alternative solutions, even unconventional ones, to stay competitive in a volatile market.”
Despite being based in different locations, the pair relied on digital tools and close coordination with production, warehouse, and purchasing teams.
“We didn’t do this alone,” Firdaus said. “Our value behavior to pursue shared wins really guided us—we celebrate this with the teams who helped make it possible.”
Their second-place finish highlighted how Aboitiz Foods’ collaborative culture turns individual ideas into operational success.
For Team Project SILICA at the Pilmico Iligan Plant in the Philippines, innovation started with a simple question: What else can we improve?
With just days before the deadline, Rolando “Bon” Magdadaro Jr., Kent Andrew Tuble, and Mery Jane Bandolon developed a valorization strategy for rice husk ash—often treated as waste—into a desiccant technology for sustainable feed preservation.
What followed was an intense period of teamwork. The group reached out to colleagues in Quality, Nutrition, and Finance to validate the concept.
Tuble described his initial nervousness during the presentation, which eventually turned into a conversation. “I realized their interest in the project turned into a dialogue or a friendly exchange of ideas, where they offered insights on how it could be more beneficial to the company,” he noted.
The team highlighted the benefits of converting rice husk ash into silica desiccants, which could potentially address moisture in animal feeds, especially during transportation, reduce waste and carbon emissions, and generate a new income stream for the organization.
For Bandolon, the experience reinforced the power of collaboration.“What started as an idea formed within the four corners of the office gradually turned into something bigger. It showed how collective commitment can turn simple ideas into meaningful results.”
Magdadaro shared that their third-place finish motivates them to do better and aim for the top spot as they prepare early for the next The MILL.
“As a leader, I must encourage our team members to look for ways to improve our systems and processes continuously,” said Magdadaro, adding, “Ultimately, these ideas are not simply for compliance; they are meant to enhance our processes.”
Across all winning teams, one theme stands out: Aboitiz Foods’ commitment to empowering its people by nourishing their potential and passion to do “Always Better.”
By creating platforms like The Mill, the company gives team members the confidence to explore concepts and strategies, the support to collaborate, and the opportunity to turn ideas into impact. The experience builds not only better solutions but also stronger, more capable innovators.
From lab ideas to cross-country collaboration and science-driven breakthroughs, these stories reflect how Aboitiz Foods is looking ahead to serve better and to build expertise for quality—by investing in the people who sustainably feed Asia’s growth from mill to meal.