The Lettuce King

Adversities in the eyes of a good man are viewed as opportunities. From a pile of problems, he sees a stack of solutions. Sufferings are nothing but challenges that are worthwhile to deal with. With this attitude, who can put a good man down?

Who would ever think that Lyndon Tan – the person derided by many that he would not amount to anything because he repeated Grade 5 and would rather excel in tennis (where he learned discipline) than attend school – would become the biggest supplier of lettuce in the country? If the more than 90 percent high-end lettuces in the market (which come from his Basic Necessity farm in Silang, Cavite) is not enough statistics to prove that he lords it over in the garden salad domain, you might as well know that Lyndon also stopped the importation of lettuce from Australia and the US in 2002 thereby bringing down the cost of this green from P400 to P70 a kilo.

Of course, Lyndon’s path to success is not without perforated by hitches and glitches. "You have to start somewhere," Lyndon says. "And it’s always good to start at the bottom."

In 1997, even with an MBA degree from the Asian Institute of Management to boot, Lyndon was seemingly facing a blank wall – Philippine economy was down as a concomitant result of the Asian crisis. He could have gone to rice milling, the business of his family in Bicol, but he lost his interest in it after the government alleged that his family was into rice cartel in 1995. It was also around this time when the parents of a girl he was dating told him that their daughter had no future in Lyndon.

Looking for some enlightenment, he went on a soul-searching activity at the retreat house of the Canossian Sisters in Tagaytay where he met Sr. Bruna, an 80-year-old Italian nun.

"Why are you here?" the nun asked Lyndon while attending to her plots planted to lettuce and herbs like thyme, sage, rosemary and basil.

"I came here to find my passion in life," Lyndon told Sr. Bruna.

"Why don’t you become a vegetable farmer?" suggested the nun.

The suggestion of Sr. Bruna came to Lyndon like manna from heaven. The next thing he knew he was already into vegetable trading. Together with his truck driver, a pahinante, and a lady vendor, he would leave Cavite every day at 7 a.m. to buy vegetables in Nueva Ecija. By 2 p.m., he would be on his way back to Manila to sell his vegetables at 6 p.m. on the sidewalks of Balintawak in Quezon City. Many times, he and his staff were accosted by the police for selling along the bangketa. But Lyndon did not give up. He knew that for him to understand the vegetable market, he had to learn the ins and outs of selling the produce. If not in Balintawak, Lyndon could be found in Divisoria selling fresh produce like tomatoes, carrots, eggplants, cauliflowers and beans from Benguet.

While he was into the business of trading vegetables, many people around him are hurling their tirades at him – that he would not succeed in his endeavor. With or without acerbic remarks from those who wanted to put him down, there was no stopping Lyndon from his date with success. In a few months time, Lyndon learned the ropes of the market quite easily. Instead of selling in Balintawak or Divisoria, he sold his vegetables in Tagaytay. Soon, his greens went straight to the kitchens of Josephine’s, Estancia, Canyon Woods, Days Inn Hotel, Tagaytay Highlands among other hotels and restaurants in the area.

In 1998, he started looking for contract growers and looked for people who would lease their property to him. Soon after, he bought a 700-sq. m. property in Silang and decided to live there. About 400-sq. m. of this land was planted to lettuces – red and green romaine, lollo rossa, red corals, red and green oakleaf, frellise and arugula.

Lyndon hit it big when he was accorded the Best Farmer in the Gawad Saka Award in 2002. After bagging the Presidential Award for agriculture, the government helped Lyndon in funding the extension of his farm. Now, the globally competitive Basic Necessity is an eight-hectare farm planted to fancy lettuces – once very expensive in the market but now commands an affordable selling price anywhere in the country. Lyndon grows his lettuces (and basil and cherry red tomatoes, too) in big, high-tech and computerized green houses that employ hydrophonic technology. Hydrophonics (or soil-less farming) is an advanced method of growing plants using coconut fiber and palay husk instead of soil. This technology enables the plant to produce more vegetation, larger fruits and flowers. With the efficiency of hydrophonics, Lyndon harvests some 1,500 kilos of lettuce every day to supply the demand of hotels, restaurants, resorts, supermarkets and other establishments nationwide. Helping him in his farm is his growing number of employees. From three staff, Lyndon has now 120 people in his ward. Lyndon knows too well that his people in the farm are intrinsic part of his success. Thus, he’s never remiss in providing them the comforts of life – free board and lodging is tops on his list. Every now and then, he also treats his staff to a movie.

"It is my dream for Filipinos to include lettuce in their daily diet," says Lyndon, also a TOYM awardee for agriculture and food technology in 2003. To achieve his dream, he recently launched "Salad Time," pre-packed meal size salads in a bag with Lite Vinaigrette or Thousand Islands dressing, in convenient stores and groceries around the Philippines. Lyndon’s lettuces have also found their way in the doors of different fast-food chains in the country.

If Lyndon surrendered to the many challenges of life, he would have not found his passion to make something so healthy so affordable. Indeed, Lyndon found that being a farmer is a fulfilling job.

Hail to the Lettuce King!

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(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at [email protected]. You may also snail mail me at The Philippine Star, R. Oca Jr. cor. Railroad Streets, Port Area, Manila.)