Tentay partners with UBS to boost brand in the south

CEBU, Philippines – Tentay Food Sauces Inc., together with Cebu-based distribution company United Business Sales (UBS) Corp., will pour in a joint investment of at least P5 million to boost the brand popularity in the Southern Philippine area.

Using Cebu as its gateway, the 60-year-old sauce company is now recognizing the importance of the market in the South to drive its growth, while the brand has already established market penetration in other countries.

Recently, Tentay Food Sauces Inc. represented by its president and chief executive officer (CEO Velia J. Cruz, and UBS Distribution representative Choco Uy signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to make Tentay brand easily available in all major grocery and retail outlets initially in Cebu.

 In an interview, Cruz said that now that the brand has achieved several international accreditations such as the in Middle East’s Certified Islamic Dawa Council of the Philippines for Halal accreditation, and similar food accreditation requirement in other countries, the brand is confident to regain strength specifically in Cebu.

Cruz admitted that it is challenging to enter the Cebu market, because of its “discriminating” taste. Now, that the brand is much ready to offer its international-quality various type of food sauces, the company is optimistic to gain popularity in a shorter span of time.

The 60-year old sauce brand had slowed down its marketing penetration in Cebu and other parts of the Southern Philippine market for a while, because of some logistical problems, while it has also experienced internal glitches along the way, including fixing its manufacturing operations and quality system to compete globally, Cruz said.

“We faced growing pains just like other companies, and brands,” Cruz said.

With its vision to become the “Kikoman of the Philippines”, the brand is not only strong in the National Capital Region (NCR), but also in other countries such as Middle East, Hong Kong, Japan, United States, Australia, Hawaii, Guam, among others.

The company has incurred huge investment to automate its plant to align its operations and manufacturing quality in the global standard. Because it is a pure Filipino brand, Cruz said Filipinos should not be deprived of this affordable but internationally-known sauce brand.

For his part, UBS’ Uy said that initial distribution of the brand’s products will be deployed in major supermarkets and department stores in Cebu, including retail stores in wet markets.

Initial list are include Gaisano Grand, Gaisano Capital, Metro Gaisano, Fooda Savers, and White Gold supermarkets.

“We are going to actively re-introduce the brand, starting with the grassroot market,” Uy said.

Part of the P5 million investments will be used for pushing for visibility and easy access of the product direct to the consumers.

In 1949, Ruperta D. Javier, an enterprising housewife concocted a fish sauce (patis) and fish paste (bagoong) from the fish hauls in the part of Navotas. Aware of the delicious taste of her creation and proud of it, she simply named both “Tentay” which was how she was popularly called.

Now, Tentay brand is known globally, with its various choices of food sauces, from fish sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, spiced vinegar, banana ketchup, sweet chili sauce, calamansoy, and fish-ball sauce.  (FREEMAN)