Jun Carbonilla “saved by the polvoron”

CEBU, Philippines — Nicerato “Jun” E. Carbonilla Jr., knows exactly the true heartbeat of failure, in fact he becomes too familiar with it that he was able to build a bridge made out of pain, which ushered him to what he described as an unexpected destination—success.

Jun founded the flourishing Feb20 Enterprises, the company behind the ‘Mandaue’s Nutritious’ brand, which carries common and traditional comfort food items such as polvoron, tablea, instant champorado, processed peanuts and masareal. Nothing new, really. These products have been in the market since time immemorial.

But Jun’s backyard business, born out of desperation to provide a comfortable life to his family, is now in demand not just in local supermarkets and established pasalubong joints in Cebu and other parts of the Philippines, but also in overseas markets such as Middle East and the United States.

His secret? “Giving the market something new through innovation.”  Making familiar products a bit unfamiliar to incite excitement, add to that a good investment in packaging too.

The bridge

Before Jun discovered his fate in food manufacturing business, he spent all his might and energy to becoming a lawyer.

Jun shook the hands of failure not just once, not even twice, but four times—just to enter the field of lawyering. He took the bar exam four times. Failed all those. Painfully elusive, he figured.

Through the failed investments of time and money, Jun was able to build a bridge made of bricks of pain and disappointments. One day, he decided to finally leave his lawyering dream behind.

What used to be the family’s non-bearing sideline, Jun made the polvoron his pastime while mending his break-up with his first love dream.

The bridge made up of bricks of pain slowly led him to open doors of opportunities, and Jun found himself “in a relationship” with a new-found dream.

This time, a love-affair with polvoron making. Jun’s passionate attachment with this new dream opened up his creative inner wells, and somehow the ride went fairly smooth.

Posture of confidence

Raised by a family of 10 siblings fed by a daily income from wet-marketing/sidewalk vending in Surigao City in Mindanao, Jun is naturally aloof in blending with intricacies of big city lifestyle. Let alone, the series of failures behind him.

Yet, he managed to make money in real estate brokerage and as an insurance agent. Since income in these careers were not stable, Jun moved on to focus his attention to make polvoron a business, no matter how challenging the market would be.

He invested his small savings of P50 thousand to buy a mixer in order to produce good quantity and quality, and sell polvoron to friends and even strangers.

He named his polvoron product ‘Mandaue’s Nutritious’. Aside from its quality and right flavoring, Jun also invested much on developing appealing and classy packaging.

The company’s first glimpse of success happened when Jun forced himself to put on his posture of sweeping confidence knocking the doors of government agencies like Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to seek help.

It was another act of humility, with confidence that he only has clean intention of pleading for assistance, only for his business to find the right path of growth and sustain the livelihood of his employees.

In 2016, DOST granted him a machinery assistance worth P2.2 million. It was given under the rent-to-own term.

“I opened myself to possibilities. It did not matter anymore if I fail again, what is important was to never miss every door, “ Jun shared.

From traditional polvoron product, Jun slowly introduced other flavored variants such as chocolate coated polvoron, and other flavors.

His Malunggay Polvoron variant is an international awardee, a recipient of a French award giving body—Sial Innovation. Mandaue’s Best Malunggay Polvoron bested other giant brands like Hershey’s and other 300 consumer brands around the world in the innovation category.

The company received several recognitions by various award giving bodies both the local and national levels.

Big break

Jun got his first good break for his backyard business, when Cebu delicacies store brand Shamrock Bakery and Restaurant Corporation contracted volumes of polvoron orders.

He said it was a big break that brought his company a few notch higher, and allowed him to invest in expanding more product lines like the Tablea, instant champorado, processed peanut and masareal.

“I needed to develop other products so that my employees will have year-long income, which doesn’t merely depend on polvoron, wherein demand goes up and down,” he said.

Aside from the break also granted to him by DOST, Jun also attributed the healthy growth of his small business to his active participation in trade fairs, mall exhibits, and investments in making his backyard manufacturing plant fully compliant to every government requirement and good manufacturing services (GMS) standard.

His business may be deemed a micro company, but it is a bona fide member of the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Another stamp of  being at par with “word class”.

From Shamrock’s bulk orders, ‘Mandaue’s Nutritious’ array of product lines found their prominent places in major supermarkets, pasalubong centers in Manila, Shell gas station’s convenience stores, among other retail distribution networks.

Today, the company is working its export penetration starting with its presence in the Middle Eastern countries through a German distribution company based in Middle East.

Next year, Jun’s ‘Mandaue’s Nutritious’ will enter the fertile ground of United States.

Inspiration

When Jun decided to mend his heartaches of a failed dream, he made polvoron making the center of his attention. He never went to school to learn the art of business, but he quenched his hunger for knowledge by reading success stories of entrepreneurs, who started with barely nothing and eventually built empires.

Like a sponge, Jun took every lesson he learned from the tales of successful entrepreneurs to heart. Soon, he also dreams of sharing his business journey to others who need inspiration to continue in shaping “the bridge” using pain, discouragements and failures to build a stronger pathway going to greener destination.

Surely, Jun is not finish yet in his success journey in the food business. In fact, it is still the beginning of ‘Mandaue’s Nutritious’ brand to cross the bridge -- off to its world tour!

At least, this time Jun is sure it is on the right route.

Like other few successful homegrown brands, Jun’s backyard manufacturing will soon serve the world’s craving for a bite or more of ‘Mandaue’s Nutritious’ goodness!

Meantime, Jun is going back to his first love—and hopefully to see his name with attached four-letter-word “Atty.” If this happens, he could call himself “beyond successful.” (FREEMAN)