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Unilever has opened a new manufacturing facility in Palmira, Colombia, for its local dressing brands, Fruco and Del Huerto. Situated within Unilever's existing production complex, known as the Palmira Hub, the site joins a logistics operations centre and four other production plants. The hub operates three facilities for home and personal care products, while the fourth is for the newly-built factory. The hub is the fourth-largest Unilever production centre in Latin America and employs around 1,200 people, supplying customers in Colombia and 16 other countries in the LATAM region. The company's food division in Latin America owns 13 brands including Hellmann’s and Knorr. Unilever said that the decision to expand the Palmira Hub is based on a strategic decision aimed at consolidating local production and logistics in a single location in Colombia. Rodrigo Sotomayor, general manager of Unilever in Colombia, commented: "Consolidating all our production and logistics in a single point in the country is part of our firm commitment to Valle del Cauca, a region that has significant competitive advantages and on which we have been betting for many years". He continued: "By centralising our operations in Palmira, we are able to improve logistical efficiency, optimise our supply chain and strengthen our capacity to respond to market demands”.