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DAVAO CITY—A
local food manufacturer here broke through the rich
Middle Eastern market when it sent its initial shipment
of 20 metric tons (MT) of frozen bananas last month, in
a successful follow-through of the government-led trade
mission to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in April this
year.
The
Davao City-based Sagrex Foods Inc. hoped to corner a
large share of the 1.4 million-strong overseas Filipino
market with its product that is the common raw material
for many preparations and delicacies among ordinary
Filipino households on siesta and merienda time.
Pedro
Ezekiel Sandoval, the company’s operations manager, said
its Saudi Arabian buyer has also told the company that
it was also interested in its Pinoy fries and the turon
(ripe banana glazed with sugar).
“Our
buyer in Saudi, an Arab businessman married to a
Filipina, is also interested to order Pinoy fries and
turon but as of now, we can’t meet their demand
because our new equipment has not arrived yet,” he told
the Department of Trade and Industry office here, which
was monitoring how its trade mission to Saudi Arabia in
April this year has developed actual trading after that.
The
Sagrex Foods Inc. also makes Pinoy fries and turon,
aside from its production of frozen ripe Cardava banana.
Ferdinand Marañon, owner of Sagrex Foods Inc., was among
the 14 businessmen who joined the KSA trade and
investment mission spearheaded by the Department of
Trade and Industry. National Economic Research and
Business Assistance Center (DTI-Nerbac) Davao early this
year.
Sandoval
said the company would soon own a blast-freeze machine
to improve company production and to enable it to supply
the demand for the sugar-glazed fried ripe banana and
the banana fries.
Sandoval
said that the company paid at least $30,000 to buy the
machine, which could package frozen bananas at the rate
of 500 kilograms per hour. He said the blast-freeze
machine may be delivered here next month.
Current
plant production capacity of the company was at the
level of 1.5 MT per day. “With a new machine, company’s
expansion will commence upon its availability,” he said.
“Our
expansion will really be ASAP [as soon as possible],” he
said in a DTI statement.
The
expansion program would accommodate the new markets that
might be tapped by the company in the
United States,
Taiwan and South Korea.
Sandoval
said Sagrex Foods Inc. sent 10 MT of microwavable frozen
bananas last year to Korea for market testing and
sampling. “With that, we immediately received an order
of two 40-footer containers [one container loads 20 MT]
per month but with our present capacity, we really could
not meet their demand. Korea’s demand is really big,
That’s why we are rushing our expansion,” he said.
He said
the expansion would also accommodate the local market.
“One Davao businessman approached us to buy our product
for export to Australia. A fast-food chain is also
interested to get our Pinoy fries. When our new
equipment comes, hopefully we can continue to accept
orders,” Sandoval said.
Banana
has been identified as the region’s commodity under the
One Town One Product program, according to Merle Cruz,
DTI regional director.
The DTI
here quoted a report from the Bureau of Customs and DTI-Nerbac
Davao that showed the region “already recorded a total
export value of $320.38 million for fresh and processed
banana during the first semester of this year.” |
