Friday, November 23, 2007 Davao firm ships 20 mt frozen bananas to Saudi
WITH the strong demand for banana in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), a Davao-based company has initially shipped 20 metric tons (mt) of frozen bananas last month.
Ferdinand Marañon, owner of Sagrex Foods, Inc., the sole company in Mindanao which is into the production of frozen ripe cardava banana, Pinoy fries (frozen banana fries), and turon (ripe banana glazed with sugar), 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. The mission paved the way for the market tie-up with KSA.
Trade and Industry Assistant Secretary Merly M. Cruz said that during their visit in KSA, Sagrex Foods' products gained positive feedbacks. The traders, distributors, and OFWs expressed intense desire for the products to be made available in the market.
"I can confidently say that Sagrex's partnership with KSA will go a long way because I've personally witnessed the interest of Arabs to really market the products locally," Cruz.
Engineer Pedro Ezekiel Sandoval, operations manager of Sagrex Foods, said the shipment is just the start of the company's strong partnership with its buyer in KSA. The said country has around 1.4 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
"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 kasi nga hindi pa dumarating ang bago naming equipment," he said.
The equipment, which was mentioned by Sandoval, is a blast freeze machine worth at least US$30,000. It has a capacity of 500 kilograms per hour.
To date, the company's plant capacity is only at the level of 1.5 MT per day. With a new machine, Sandoval said, their production level will greatly improve.
They are expecting the equipment to be in by December or early part of 2008 and the company's expansion will commence upon its availability.
"Our expansion will really be ASAP (as soon as possible)," he said.
With the planned expansion, the company is expecting to accommodate more orders from various clients, both local and international.
Aside from KSA, Sagrex Foods is also looking at other markets such as the United States, Taiwan and Korea.
"Last year, we sent 10 metric tons of microwavable frozen bananas 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. Malaki talaga ang demand ng Korea. Kaya nga minamadali namin ang aming expansion," he said.
Moreover, Sandoval said, the expansion will also let them cater to the demand of the local market.
"Isang taga-Davao na businessman ang lumapit na sa amin para bumili ng aming produkto (A businessman approached us asking to buy our products) for them to export to Australia. A fast food chain is also interested to get our Pinoy fries. Kapag nandyan na ang aming bagong makina (When we get our machine), hopefully, tuloy-tuloy na ang tanggap namin ng (the) orders (will continue)," Sandoval said.
Banana, being the region's enrolled commodity under the One Town One Product (Otop) program, keeps on soaring high as manifested by this development, Cruz said.
Otop is a priority program of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that aims to promote entrepreneurship and create jobs. Through Otop, local chief executives of each city and municipality take the lead in identifying, developing, and promoting a specific product or service with a competitive advantage.
Based on the report of the Bureau of Customs (BoC) and DTI-Nerbac Davao, the region already recorded a total export value of US$320.38 million for fresh and processed banana during the first semester of this year.
