Enterprising engineer-mom among Cebu’s top RC Cola dealers

MANILA, Philippines - ARC Refreshments Corporation has started to fuel consistent growth in Cebu’s challenging soft-drink market after acquiring the RC Cola plant in 2012.  The current rising trajectory of RC Cola sales is yielding positive returns for Cebuano retailers and dealers, including an enterprising engineer-mom.

Expressway Enterprises is one of the leading retailers of RC Cola in the country, particularly in Cebu City. But its owner Ceferina Porras only had a modest goal in mind when she entered the cola industry as an engineer looking for a sideline while still making time for her two children.

Porras had just resigned from her managerial job and was intending to establish a profit venture for her family when she stumbled upon an opportunity: “A friend of mine informed me about a vacancy in South Bus Terminal Cebu City since the wholesaler for soft drinks there closed down.”

In 1997 at 33 years old, she started Expressway Enterprises with only P50,000 as startup capital, two workers, a lone pushcart for deliveries, and quickly realized that one can earn positive profit in the cola-selling business. “It was difficult in the beginning, especially with my limited entrepreneurial knowledge, having graduated as a civil engineer. But I was able to balance it out by using my managerial and people skills which I acquired when I was still working.”

Her company decided in 2008 to include RC Cola products in its daily delivery to downtown customers after being persuaded by the brand’s former bottler in Cebu City. They had a slow start, but Porras and her group persisted, and today, they are partners of ARC in replicating the Luzon success of RC Cola in Cebu City.

RC Cola grows Cebu market share

On the 10th year of ARC Refreshments Corporation two years ago, the company was able to secure the Cebu plant and finally became the sole licensed Philippine bottler of RC Cola and RC Cola products. Prior to the acquisition, the brand was already present in the Cebu-Visayas region but was posting erratic gains at best under a succession of bottlers and owners, which prompted the buyout.

The subsequent re-channeling of ARC’s manpower and equipment to Cebu helped dealership and retail businesses there improve at a more solid pace. After 17 years beside South Bus Terminal, the lot owners decided to develop the site, and fortunately, Porras’ company was able to relocate in Sawang Calero just a few blocks from their former space.

Nurturing the business to the scale that it is now is extra challenging given the competitive nature of the industry, but the entrepreneur mom has risen to the occasion.

“We have employed more than 40 people to keep up with the operations and have already acquired four elf trucks, four vans, two multi-cabs, and one tricycle,” she discloses. “From the profits gained, we were able to finish our dream house and purchase three additional lots in a prime residential development. I wouldn’t have believed it at the beginning that we will be able to go this far.”

According to her, the following action points are crucial to the success of an aspiring entrepreneur: 1) the owner must personally manage the business to get a better feel of how the entire operation works, 2) one must assign several staff members to canvass the orders of the customers, 3) delivery should be quick and efficient so that more customers will be willing to transact with the dealer/retailer again, 4) entrepreneurs must have patience and perseverance, and 5) he/she should understand that workers are also human and are entitled to get tired of the heavy workload and the unpredictable weather.

Beyond being driven by a strong bottom line, ARC is invested in creating entrepreneurs and helping them remain buoyant over the long haul.

“We are glad to have an area sales manager who is willing to accommodate our concerns and requests even if it is already late at night,” she says. “It’s very important to have a partner that understands us since this makes things easier for us.” By dependably supplying fast-growing-favorite RC Cola to consumers in the gateway province of Cebu, Porras and other entrepreneurs like her are contributing to the viability of the region as an investment market.