From farming to meat shop operations

Upon finishing veterinary medicine at UP Los Banos, Robert Lo wanted to leave for the US to study some more and hopefully earn a living there. But his visa was denied and this forced him to look around for something to do.

In 1988, he formed Red Dragon Farm, which was initially a poultry contract grower for San Miguel Corp. starting with 5,000 heads in Dolores, Maliwala, Bacolor, Pampanga. When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, his farm with 60,000 heads was buried in lahar.

Before the lahar, he put up four other farms: another in Maliwala in 1990 first with SMC and then he shifted to General Milling Corp. and RFM; in Barangay Lara, San Fernando, Pampanga with 100,000 heads (until it reached 125,000 heads when lahar struck); another farm in Lara with GMC and RFM first with 100,000 heads until it reached 123,000 heads and still another farm (this time his personal farm) in San Jose, Magalang, Pampanga in 1994 with 143,000 heads.

His farms in Lara and Maliwala were wiped out but this did not deter him from pursuing his poultry farming.

His own farm in Magalang came from years of successful breeding and he was able to get breeders easily from his previous suppliers and new ones like Vitarich and Robina. He bought his feeds from different companies like Purefoods, Nutrimix; Jaka and BMeg.

Before he was able to put up his feedmill plant, Lo depended on Feedworld in Porac (formerly owned by Agustin but was acquired by Renato Tayag) to supply toll produce his feeds requirement.

A second misfortune hit his farm: the Asian crisis of 1997 when chicken prices plunged causing many chicken farms to go bankrupt. The crisis in fact prompted Lo to start his own Lodestar Feednill plant in 2000 to cut on production costs. His plant now produces 12 tons per hour of feeds.

In 2000, he started his own piggery farm in San Pablo, Magalang, which was designed by his professor – now director of Bureau of Animal Industry – Dr. Jose Q. Molina, who was then one of the highest paid executives of Monterrey Farms.

Molina’s design was state of the art and involved unheard of concepts like HACCP and good manufacturing practices, which are now a standard practice in developed countries and markets.

The piggery farm covers 2.4 hectares with a sow level of 140 heads. His piggery farm also had pig improvement breeding and genetics, which enabled him to increase productivity.

Then he opened another piggery in Barangay San Agustin also in Magalang, which is now the breeding station with 1,300 sows and another farm in Barangay Lara, a fattening farm.

In between farms, Lo took up masters in entrepreneurship at the Asian Institute of Management in 2003 where he saw the need to further his business from farming to marketing.

Last April, he opened his first meat shop in SPC Warehouse Mall in Magalang. Then last June 9 he launched his second meat shop beside the Nepo Mall and Nepo wet market also in Magalang, Pampanga.

At the launch, Lo said he will open a third store before the end of the year and his meat processing plant sometime in August to supply the processed meats and chicken and pork cuts of his stores.

Because his farm produces the pork and chicken to be processed by his meat plant, then Lo is able to provide cheaper meat compared to the wet market and the malls near his stores.

Lo also left last Saturday to attend a two-week course on waste management in the UK, which he hopes to apply in his farms. Right now, he already uses the biogas energy to power a portion of his farms‚ requirement.

With all these going for him, Lo now laughs at his former dream of migrating to the US.