DTI roadshow highlights product packaging for MSMEs

TACLOBAN. Department of Trade and Industry Assistant Secretary Demphna Du-Naga (front, center) leads the DTI workforce in the “Pack! Pinas, an MSME Packaging Roadshow” held at Summit Hotel in Tacloban City on May 3-4, 2018. (Ronald O. Reyes)
TACLOBAN. Department of Trade and Industry Assistant Secretary Demphna Du-Naga (front, center) leads the DTI workforce in the “Pack! Pinas, an MSME Packaging Roadshow” held at Summit Hotel in Tacloban City on May 3-4, 2018. (Ronald O. Reyes)

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) kicked off Thursday, May 3, its roadshow on the latest packaging trends to help micro-small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in selling their products.

“Packaging is a market. If packaging is good, the market will increase. This will bring change to our MSMEs. We have to innovate to increase our market and demand,” said DTI Assistant Secretary Demphna Du-Naga in a press conference in Tacloban City on agency’s newest initiative: “Pack! Pinas, an MSME Packaging Roadshow.”

“The image of your enterprise depends on your brand,” added Benedict Uy of DTI’s Foreign Trade Service Corps, as he urged MSMEs to “change our mindset” of being price sensitive, saying that “sometimes, going cheap is not the way to go.”

Uy emphasized that cheap product is not the name of the game and if an entrepreneur would invest in good packaging, he can better position his product and sell it more.

Investing in packaging is the only way to mainstream MSMEs products, he added.

Clarke Nebrao of the Packaging Institute of the Philippines also believed that if entrepreneurs would change their packaging quality, it will bring change even to the quality of life of the Filipinos.

Nebrao, whose association is composed of suppliers, manufacturers, and users of packaging materials and services, acknowledged this latest initiative of DTI.

He emphasized the importance of good packaging, citing a study that 86 percent of consumers purchases are done on the shop floor.

At least 20 Manila-based and 10 local-based suppliers of packaging materials and services were invited by DTI during the packaging caravan in Tacloban, said DTI Eastern Visayas Director Cynthia Nierras.

Nierras also assured of the agency’s continued assistance for small businessmen on their pricing and costing while using an alternative source of materials for their packaging, saying the type of material to package the product "will influence the volume of sales."

During the conference, Nierras and her provincial heads reported on the new and top MSMEs’ product lines produced in their respective localities whose packaging is also being innovated.

These products are crunchy jack fruit, dehydrated jack fruit, root crops chips, and moron (Leyte); pili, new prospect on cacao chocolate (Northern Samar); dried squid and coconut water (Southern Leyte); calamansi products (Eastern Samar); suman balintawak, ampalaya sticks, atchara (Biliran); and Charito’s, baked banana chips, root crop products (Samar); among other products in the region.

Jerry Clavesillas, of DTI Bureau of Small and Medium Enterprise Development, urged the private sectors to “take advantage of the support” given to them by the agency under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

About 350 MSMEs joined the scheduled forum where they will be assisted in designing, branding, and marketing their products and services.

DTI will have its next roadshows in Mindanao on May 16-17 at Limketkai Luxe Hotel, Cagayan de Oro City, and in Luzon on May 29-30 at San Lazaro Leisure Park in Carmona, Cavite. (SunStar Philippines)

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