A Philippine Star Lifestyle exclusive:Filipino exporters bring our food to the world at Anuga
It’s the most innovative product I have seen in this year’s fair,” Senator Cynthia Villar says. “Did you taste it?”
We are at Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany, a city famous for two things: its incredible, beautiful Gothic cathedral and the Anuga Food Fair, the world’s biggest and held every two years.
Head of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, the Senator is talking about Fisherfarms, a company that owns more than 400 bangus fishing cages around the Philippines.
I hadn’t tasted their products yet but when I did, I realized why she was raving about it. Fisherfarms is exporting — aside from milkfish products like bangus adobo, bistek and escabeche —Italian sausages, German frankfurters and hotdogs made from bangus.
Fisherfarms is one of 35 companies from the Philippines that participated at Anuga last month. And what a participation it was!
Led by CITEM, the marketing arm of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), “Food Philippines: Taste by Design” gave a strong, very polished and cohesive exhibit at the Philippine stand.
DTI Undersecretary Ponciano Manalo, who worked closely with the CITEM team, says after the official opening of the fair, “Our budget was very small and now that I’m seeing the pavilion for the first time, I’m very impressed. The look and the feel of it is very different from 2013.”
Headed by executive director Rosvi Gaetos, CITEM, says Manalo, “is a jewel in the DTI roster because they are able to produce quality exhibitions that showcase our food and furniture products. Whether it’s an international or a local fair, CITEM does a very good job at putting together an exhibit. We put a premium on working hard together with the participants and other government agencies like the Department of Budget and Management, and for Anuga, the Department of Agriculture.”
The overall design of the exhibit is spot-on, featuring a bistro-style wall and an open kitchen where chefs Anton Abad and Von Ragudos whip up Pinoy dishes using products from participating companies.
They are cooking around 50 dishes over the five-day food fair, including twice-cooked milkfish (smoked and baked) using canned coconut, coconut cream and desiccated coconut and topped it with dried pineapple, olive oil and basil. For each dish, they are using products of at least three companies.
“The biggest challenge of cooking for a trade show abroad is the ingredients, all of which we have to bring from the Philippines, and the fact that we have to highlight products of 35 companies,” says Anton. “The reaction we’ve gotten from guests at our stand has been very positive, they’ve even asked for the recipes to be emailed to them, but more importantly our traders are happy that we’re using their products and people are able to try them.”
Behind the kitchen are the individual spaces for exhibitors and at the end, flanking the pavilion, is a meeting area.
Companies that participated at Anuga were Alliance Select Foods International, Amley Food, B-G Fruits & Nuts Manufacturing, Brandexports Phils., Celebes Canning, Century Pacific Food, Global Organic & Wellness, Malagos Agri-Ventures, Fisherfarms, Franklin Baker Company of the Philippines, Gem Foods International, GSL Premium Food Export, Krystle Exports Phil., Marikina Food, M. Lhuillier Food Products, Market reach International Resources, Mega Global, Megal Global, Miesto International Food, Monde M.Y. San, Monde Nu Agri, Philfresh, Phil Grocers Food Exports, Prime Fruits International, Profood International, Province of Negros Occidental, Nisard Foundation, Organic Products in Negros Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Sagay Central, Q-Phil Products International, Raw Brown Sugar Milling, Sagrex Foods, Seatrade Canning, See’s International Food Mfg. and Snapsnax Ventures.
Food brings people together
Looking at Anuga’s numbers, you’d understand why CITEM, DTI and DA are all out in supporting the food fair. This year, 7,063 companies from 108 countries exhibited in a space covering 284,000 sqm. (Put it this way: you cannot finish looking at all the exhibitors in five days — your feet will not be able to handle it and neither will your stomach even if you sample just one percent of the exhibitors’ products!)
And trade visitors? A whopping 160,000 from 192 countries.
It’s true, food brings people together even as they speak different languages or observe diverse table traditions. It spreads love and tightens bonds, it makes cultural differences less important. It may also be the world’s biggest business as both small and big entrepreneurs can profit from it.
In the Philippines, food accounts for ten to 12 percent of the country’s total exports.
Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Ron Palad explains that this number represents “millions of jobs for Filipinos, from the farmers that plant the crops to the fishermen, the factory workers that process and pack them, and the people who sell them.”
Food becomes more significant because of the 80/20 rule — 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes, and in this case, food products create 80 percent of the jobs.
DTI’s Manalo adds, “As we progress the economy, we have to go beyond the labor component and add more value, and when we do that firms will stay and make further investments in the country. It’s a long-term view of our economy and, for any administration or any DTI head, that’s the ultimate goal.”
Another goal in progress is to create strong Philippine-made brands in the global food industry. Some companies have moved from supplying raw products to big supermarket chains such as Walmart and Carrefour, which then put their own brands, to supplying these supermarkets with Philippine-branded products.
“It’s not just important that you are able to create your own brand, you also have to manage your brand, put money behind it, invest in marketing it and showing it to the world. Branding starts with the packaging, and that’s where we need help. CITEM has done a very good job in branding so now we’re focusing on consistency.”
One of the biggest success stories is Century Tuna by Century Pacific Food. “We’re a dominant player in the Philippines, so our next growth platform is to market it abroad,” says Greg Banzon, Century VP for global branding.
Century Pacific currently exports its products under its own brands to 54 countries. “We have three major brands: Century, which is anchored on tuna and a little bit on milkfish; Argentina, which is corned beef; and 555 for sardines, tuna and carne norte, a lower-priced version of corned beef.”
Century Tuna is the widest distributed brand for Century Pacific. It started its exports in countries where there are a lot of Filipino consumers and after a year or so on the market it goes beyond our kababayans and other Asian customers.
“This project started in the Middle East, then we were able to get into Carrefour, Giant and other supermarkets. We had the same strategy for North America and now we’re in Walmart, Safeway and Albertsons.”
But what about in EU countries where they insist on fresh foods instead of frozen or processed? Banzon says the most highly accepted canned products are tuna and sardines, usually used in salads and sandwiches — but at every exhibit they try to educate their buyers that canned tuna can be eaten the way Pinoys do: tuna pasta, tuna wrap, tuna rice, etc.
Also, Banzon sees a shifting consumer pattern brought about by changing demographic profiles. “For example, the UK has become so multi-cultural because of the inflow of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa. Instead of buying from big retailers or supermarkets, you see consumers buying in smaller stores because of the ‘basket size.’ That’s a big opportunity for us because we offer price competition.”
He says there’s a big difference between Philippine-made canned tuna and western brands. “We’ve been doing a lot of can openings here and our clients see the difference. The western tuna brands are very shredded and the taste profile is bland — as opposed to ours, which is flaked and very tasty.”
All of Century’s tuna and sardine products are made in the Philippines while its meat products are made in the countries where they are sold with Century partnering with local companies. “What we’re working out in Europe now is to produce luncheon meat and liverspread made in Holland. It’s still a Philippine brand but sourced internationally.”
Foresight, reaping awards for chocolate & fish
On Oct. 9, the day before Anuga opened, Malagos Agri-Ventures was awarded silver for its 65 Percent Dark Chocolate at the World Drinking Chocolate Competition in Germany held last September. The competition was organized by the International Chocolate Awards and Malagos won alongside companies from Italy, the UK, Germany and Chile. This is the second win for Malagos abroad. The first was last April at the Academy of Chocolate Competition in London.
Malagos wowed its clients at Anuga with its fine-flavored, single-origin chocolates from cacao beans produced in the foothills of Mount Talomo in Mindanao.
Malagos chocolate maker Rex Victor Puentisima says the secret to their chocolate is that, “being single-origin, our distinct and pronounced flavor cannot be replicated.”
His mother Charita Puentisima — who was in the ornamental flowers business for three decades — started the cacao farm in 2003 in Davao and began exporting raw fermented beans. Then they decided to add value to the farm in 2012, which meant making their own chocolate from 15 varieties of cacao.
For some companies, exporting to particular countries goes beyond profit, rather it is to bring a little of home to Filipinos working and living abroad. Gem Foods International specializes in foods that cater mainly to OFWs “so we produce various products under our Buenas brand ranging from tropical fruit preserves to banana chips, frozen foods like vegetables and root crops, we also export Colette’s buko pie, and coconut cream that they use for cooking,” says Gem Foods Internationl VP and COO Gemma M. Perez.
“Our kababayans crave our foods because they miss home, that’s why we’re strong in countries where the OFW population is big like the UK, Germany, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, the Middle East, Canada and the US.”
It’s amazing that some of the companies exhibiting at Anuga are relatively new businesses — or business that have diversified and gone into food export thanks to the owners’ entrepreneurial spirit.
For Raw Brown Sugar Milling, foresight was key. President and CEO Atty. Alejandro Florian Alcantara says that in 2007, it was announced during the convention of sugar planters that the Philippines had signed the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement that would take effect in 2015.
“This was a very big challenge for us sugar planters because that means Thailand would come in very strong in the Philippines because it has cheaper sugar products,” Alcantara says.
Instead of waiting eight years to see if his business would collapse or survive the threat, he decided to find other products to produce, starting with muscovado, a type of unrefined (or partially refined) sugar with a strong molasses content and flavor.
Today they make muscovado varieties that range from plain to candies such as muscovado-coated mango.
“What I earned for the last 20 years in my legal practice I put into the plantation and sugar milling in Negros Oriental.”
Locally, their products are sold at S&R and Puregold. Internationally, they have buyers from Europe, the US and Asia. “Our biggest market is Japan. They want to buy everything we produce but we’re afraid to put everything in one basket.”
The same holds true for Fisherfarms, which wants to protect its brand. This year they won the Top Innovation Award at the Paris Food Show SIAL and at the International Trade and Quality Institute in Brussels for their all-natural fish frankfurters.
Only 10 years old, the company has about 300 SKUs sold locally and internationally. There is one particular trade fair, the Gulf Food Show, that CEO Imelda J. Madarang remembers the most.
“There was this company from Denmark that went to see us and wanted to launch fish hotdogs in the Danish market, but all they wanted to buy was our raw material. We didn’t want to sell our milkfish to them because I knew they would be our competitor in the global market. I said, ‘Even if we sell you our milkfish, you will not be able to debone it because it’s a craft in the Philippines. Bangus has 214 bones and you have to know the anatomy of the fish, where to slit it, etc. So instead we offered to sell them our own products carrying our brands but nothing has come out of it yet.”
She says that at the same Dubai show, “there was a foreign company with a big pavilion near our small booth and they said, ‘Look at that small booth, how come it is attracting so many buyers when their products are made of only one species of fish?”
“We’re positioned to do healthy food products. The problem with healthy is you’re usually left with a bland taste — and that’s where the advantage of bangus comes in — it’s nutritious, very tasty and it absorbs flavors well.
“In terms of going up the value chain, we’re the leader because a lot of bangus players have limited variations. We did not want to come to Anuga until we cleaned up our international packaging, passed all the regulations, and we were really prepared.”
The law that saved P9.6 billion worth of seafood exports
Commercial Counselor Althea Karen Antonio, who works in the Philippine Embassy in Berlin’s Philippine Trade and Investment Center, says that the European Union is very particular about exporting countries’ regulations on sustainability, illegal fishing and fair trade practices.
Our seafood exports (amounting to P9.6 billion in 2013) unfortunately earned a “yellow tag” due to these regulations in 2014, which meant that in six months this would turn into a “red tag” and our products would be banned from the EU.
Senator Cynthia Villar became the principal sponsor of Republic Act 10654 or the act to prevent, deter, and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing — an amendment to the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998.
“The amendment didn’t affect the small fishermen in municipal waters, only illegal commercial fishermen in national waters and international fishermen,” says Villar.
The law was passed on Dec. 25, 2014. Christmas Day came right on time for our seafood exporters. Soon after, the yellow tag was lifted and another “gift” was received — the GSP Plus, a preferential tariff treatment that exempts Philippine food exporters from tax.
“It took us so many years before we got the GSP Plus,” says Antonio. “We had to comply with 27 conventions. For the longest time we couldn’t comply until that law was passed.”
Perhaps in time, like American chocolates or Swiss cheese, “Made in the Philippines” will be on every supermarket shelf in the world.
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Email the author at tanyalara@yahoo.com, follow her on Instagram and Twitter @iamtanyalara, and check out her travel blog at www.findingmyway.net.
