Enviable ventures of success

Running a TV show like Business & Leisure has its highs and lows. Foremost among the lows is the time element. The first days of the week sees our production crew frantically shuttling to several venues, braving traffic and heat, and getting live interviews on current issues, forever asking our busy captains of industry to spare them a little time from their own hectic schedules, always on their toes because the show cannot afford to air stale issues. Before that, the segment producer has to sift through several newspapers, keeping a sharp eye on interesting business news before dispatching the correspondents for the live interviews.

Then comes the scripting and post-production, a detailed and time-consuming exercise that takes hours of precise editing, deleting unwanted videos then, marrying the script with the video before presenting it for a final review by the executive producer.

It may look like a glamorous job for young and eager out-of-school graduates of broadcasting, but it’s not a walk in the park because in this business, there’s no such thing as holidays — the show must go on, no matter what — and it should always be a better one than the last.

But the highs always compensate for the lows, and every now and then, we come across feel-good stories of successful ventures, of struggles that ended well in spite of and despite of. We aired quite a few entrepreneurs who did well in a singular line of business, which only goes to prove that there is a big wide world of business out there that still needs conquering. I’m talking of simple native products like bags, trays and wooden wares which were in vogue way back in the seventies and eighties. Four decades later, these entrepreneurs are still making ripples in the export market, not huge waves maybe, but enough to give them profitable ventures that give gainful employment to several of our kababayans and make life more comfortable for their own families.

There’s Angelique’s Crafts, owned and run by a simple housewife who used to work as a merchandiser for a big department store. Culling from her experience, she made the bold move from a salaried employee to a budding entrepreneur. Starting off with only three employees and a modest capital of P60,000 in 1986, her factory now employs dozens, and this simple factory turns out beautiful photo frames, jewelry boxes and bigger storage boxes, all draped in native fabric which she sources from Baguio, Davao and Bohol.

Then there’s Ric Jo International Enterprises run by husband and wife Ricardo and Jocelyn Pacheco. They also make native bags using natural fibers sourced from Quezon. Their weaving contraption, which we showed on television, may look like a crude one, but the measurements from nail to nail are all so exact that the woven fabric that it produces has the precision of machine-made fabric. They employ less than 10 workers, all from their neighborhood, in the backyard of their house which serves as their factory. It is a modest business that has given them a foothold in the bag business, has sent their children to school, and continues to provide them with a sense of security that only a thriving business can give.

There’s also Chamonde Corp., run by a pretty young woman named Joedy B. Cruel. Though she inherited the business from her parents who started it in the 90’s, Joedy formally incorporated it only in 2005. Chamonde is all about wooden products, mostly wooden wares, and she started with a substantial order of calabash which are wooden bowls used for salad. This she exported to Hawaii. Then she expanded her products to include wooden chopping boards which she regularly sends to New Zealand and wooden sushi trays which are sent mostly to Los Angeles. Her factory also employs dozens of employees and she takes pride in the lightweight, finely crafted wooden utensils that proudly show off the natural grains of the native wood she uses.

And then there’s John Carlo Creations, owned by Mr. Carlos Yu who met with initial success in his bag export business and expanded too much too soon. The Asian crisis of 1997 saw the collapse of his big-time venture in Clark, and the family faced sure bankruptcy. He turned to God and never lost faith from there, and slowly, he went back into business. SM welcomed him back as a supplier, and his old clients from Beverly Hills and Japan sought him out for his unique products. You see, John Carlo’s specialty is their molded bags where they use thermoplastic or PVC for the molds. These have not been duplicated by others, and today, John Carlo Creations continues to enjoy brisk business in export.

Though not specializing in native handicrafts, another remarkable entrepreneur we came across recently is Patricia Limpe, of the family that runs Destileria Limtuaco, the oldest manufacturing firm in the country, dating back from 1852. She belongs to the fifth generation of hardworking Limpes, and she runs yet another branch of this family’s vast interests. Patricia runs Antonio Pueo Incorporada which had its humble beginnings in Intramuros in the time of the Spanish “frailes”. They took over the business in 1991, bought the entire business lock, stock and barrel including the brand name from Antonio Pueo for P3 Million, only to find out that sourcing cacao beans, the staple in their chocolate business, would be a headache. You see, the original major supplier of cacao to Antonio Pueo chopped down his trees when he learned that the old man had sold the business. 

Because chocolate is their main line, Patricia says that relying on agricultural products for your business can be a major source of stress because of the unpredictability factors. Few people now go into tree farming (which is where cacao falls), although the economics may seem to make sense. The farmer plants his trees which would take five years to mature, and these trees live for eighty years. Some cacao farmers who go through hard times, though, easily opt to cut down their trees in favor of other more commercially viable trees.

But resourcefulness is one major trait that a manufacturer must have, and Antonio Pueo Incorporada has taken the chocolate business a step further, from mainly relying on the old-fashioned tablea chocolates as a hot beverage, to instant cake and cookie mixes. With a lot of imagination, Patricia has come up with innovative ideas to cater to the younger generation who no longer take to hand-spun hot chocolate drinks. Her Worms in the Mud Cake, an instant mix of chocolate cake are visually exciting and easy to make, and the company has expanded their product lines to include different flavors of coffee and chocolate lattes, and healthy breakfast items like Double Chocolate Oatmeal and Chocolate Champorado. They have cookie mixes in different variants, English Milk Tea, baking chocolate, and their newest line which is unsweetened chocolate.

To be sure, the business went through difficult birth pains, but looking at the wide range of products they now have, Antonio Pueo Incorporada is surviving pretty well. Patricia says she does not expect to turn in a neat profit every year, but not seeing red in her books is already a big plus for her. She proudly says that all the raw materials she uses in her finished products are sourced locally because as much as possible, they would like to support the Filipino farmer. Her only concession to imported materials is her packaging, where the Philippines still consistently lags behind as far as competitiveness is concerned. That and the milk she uses for her products which she sources either from Australia and New Zealand.

These entrepreneurs are just a few of those we have come across in this line of business who have “tamed the wilderness” so to speak, and built new frontiers.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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