Keeping the ham on the Christmas table

Every year at this time, the factory of CDO Foodsphere in Malinta, Valenzuela buzzes with unusual activity and is filled with an aroma not found in any other season. Working in two shifts, white-gowned men and women pack newly-cooked products in tightly sealed plastics and neat boxes, ready for delivery to various grocery stores nationwide.

These people are serving a big market. Christmas hams account for between 6% and 8% of the estimated P10-billion non-canned processed meat industry.

"We’re counting on our Filipino tradition of buying hams for the noche buena table to carry us through the economic crisis," said CDO marketing manager Jon Bendicion. "We’ve seen it in the past. No matter how bad the times, Filipinos still buy ham for Christmas."

CDO has been making ham since its founder, Corazon Dayro Ong, started the company in her family home in another area of Valenzuela in the early 1970s. Through the years, it has expanded its product line to include canned meat products such as corned beef and luncheon meat. Today, CDO is the third largest hotdog producer in the country, supplying various fast-food chains such as Jollibee.

Despite the growing demand for its other products, however, CDO has not set aside its ham making.

"We’ve been in this business for so many years and we’ve mastered the art of making fully-cooked ham," Bendicion said.

Variants

CDO has at least five variants of Christmas ham to suit different tastes and budgets. Its traditional offering, the Holiday ham, is made of deboned whole pork leg muscle that comes ready to eat from the box. It is, by far, the company’s most sought after ham product and is the favorite of corporate buyers who give these away to clients or employees.

CDO’s second bestseller is the pear-shaped ham, which is best suited for a small family with an equally small Christmas dinner budget. At P139 for 800 grams, this product is usually the first to go out of stock in stores.

There is also the square or American ham that restaurants normally prefer. It retails at P185 a kilo. And there is the Hamon de Bola, priced at P159 for 850 grams, which goes well with the another Christmas Eve staple, Edam cheese.

CDO’s premium ham product is the traditional Chinese ham, which comes with the bone and is cooked the old-fashioned way. The Chinese ham is priced at P345 to P380 a kilo.

In response to the weaker economy, CDO has come up this year with a sixth variant, a budget ham called the Saver’s ham, which retails for P80 per 500-gram package.

"We’ll be selling this ham in wet markets where a lot of low-cost hams are being sold," said Bendicion.

Major factors

In the Christmas ham business, taste and price are the two major factors in pushing sales. To these, CDO adds timing as overstocking could result in tons of rotting hams after the New Year.

"This business could give a young manager the creeps, if he is not careful with his planning," said Bendicion. "Last year, sales remained weak going into the third week of December. We were definitely worried. The volume orders began to pick up only on Dec 22 and we were able to meet our target."

At CDO, ham making starts in November. That’s when 200 employees who do other things during the first 10 months of the year concentrate on making enough ham for the Christmas season. By December, the company increases other logistics such as the number of delivery vans.

"In the past, we’ve been cautious about promoting our products. This year, we’re fighting it out in the marketplace to make people aware of our products," Bendicion said.

CDO currently has gondolas in different supermarkets, manned by sales personnel wearing Santa Claus costumes who offer free taste tests to shoppers.

Gauging from the activity on its factory floor and the aroma that permeates the air inside its sprawling headquarters, CDO may be looking at a real feast this Christmas season.