Monday, January 05, 2009 Exec: Small clusters seen to help resolve food issues
TO SURVIVE the deepening global economic recession, the Philippine food industry must break itself into small working clusters following the examples of the Biscuit Philippines cluster in Metro Manila and bottled sardines cluster in Dipolog City.
This was one of the recommendations made during a recent consultation with players of the billion-dollar food export industry as they formulated common survival strategies at ground level due to declining export orders.
Using the Biscuit Philippines cluster as model, Ferdie Chanpongco, an officer of the cluster, said groups in the same business could come out with specific plans from developing common product brands to targeting niche markets and pushing through a unified marketing offensive.
Small clusters may be composed of 10 to 20 enterprises in the same business. As a group, they can study their target markets more closely, develop new products in response to market trends and test-sell those products.
In the case of Biscuit Philippines, its members have committed to pursue product development intensely even as they strategize to make their members compliant with global standards.
The same food group also included in its work program closer cooperation with the Department of Agriculture (DA) in matching exporters with farmers in crop or product-based contract growing arrangements.
Contract growing has been institutionalized by only a few big food conglomerates that include San Miguel Corp., Purefoods, Robina Farms, and more recently the hybrid yellow corn industry.
Small and medium food processors, have, however, relied on public wholesale markets like Divisoria and Balintawak in sourcing their raw materials. (Press release)
