Calamansi is a fruit that all Filipinos are accustomed to – as a cooking ingredient, for whitening, or to heal simple cough. This is also the reason why, 13 years ago, Stella Cepeda and husband Randy, owners of Pick and Squeeze, used this as the main ingredient for their product – calamansi natural fruit concentrate.
 |
| Randy and Stella Cepeda, owners of Pick and Squeeze |
A Family Recipe
The recipe for making calamansi concentrate has been passed on from one generation of Stella’s family to another. They decided to utilize it, modified it and packaged them as give-away to friends, relatives and officemates for Christmas. “People cannot believe it when we said we just made them from our kitchen. They told us, ‘you should sell this! It could be a lucrative business!’” shared Stella.
Considering their friends’ opinion, they started selling to officemates in a per-order basis. They worked after office hours until 2 in the morning. “We produced 50-60 bottles a night, only because iyon lang ang kaya naming lutuin. The orders were greater than what we can produce. After a few months of that lifestyle, we decided to go full-time with the business,” narrates Randy. “Mas malaki pa ang kinikita namin sa side-line negosyo kaysa sa full-time job! We wanted to sustain the growth of the business that’s why we got into it more seriously. Believe me, when people knew we were full-time with the business na, the orders just kept coming!” exclaimed Stella.
From Home and Beyond
They coordinated with the barangay captain and hired additional unemployed people from their area in San Juan, when the volume of orders became too much to handle. Right now, they employ 15 regular workers.
They started exporting their product in 2000. That’s when their perception for growth also changed. “Before, we would count our sales per bottle (750 ml). At some point, well-meaning resource persons advised us to start thinking of growth. My father said, ‘Stop counting per bottles. Negotiate, transact, and deal – with both your supplying and buying end – in terms of cases (12 bottles per case),” shared Randy. “Kasama sa paglaki, tinanggal namin ‘yung tingi or retail mentality,” he added. They now supply 400-500 cases per month to different grocery chains, Duty Free, UCC Coffee, Max’s, Sugi Restaurant, and soon in Robinsons malls.
Finding Opportunity Amidst Challenges
Calamansi, despite being common, is seasonal. This is one of Stella and Randy’s challenges as entrepreneurs. They went to different markets until they met calamansi suppliers from Mindoro. “Apparently, calamansi also have peak and lean seasons! The prices are really unstable. This is all because of the backward farming practices,” Stella sadly relates. “This is also the reason why we could not equally compete with the global market. International market requires farmers to comply with Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) – a practice that our farmers are not aware of,” she added. “These experiences taught us to be flexible, and to plan and plot ahead of time. That particular challenge forced us to look for sources from Zamboanga, Iloilo, Aklan, Davao and Leyte,” says Randy.
Thirsty for More Knowledge
After about 12 years in the business, Stella and Randy are still open for more knowledge to grow the business. When they saw the newspaper ad about the 10, 000 Women Business Training Program, Stella immediately enrolled. University of Asia and the Pacific, through the help of IESE Business School and Goldman Sachs, conducts this business training program. “The training was a wealth of information! The professors were motivating. During our class, I realized na madami pa pala kaming hindi nagagawa sa negosyo. It took another person to look at this business professionally, especially since we consider this as a backyard business,” narrates Stella.
The business training program opened their eyes to future goals. They are planning to have more equipment to make more calamansi juice concentrate. They also want to expand their product line by introducing new flavor of concentrate in the market. Both of them believe they can survive more years in the business, utilizing their learnings from experiences and the business training.
Pick and Squeeze
Serramonta Enterprise
Stella and Randy Cepeda
28 Valenzuela St. San Juan, Metro Manila
Phone: (632) 723-7936
Fax: (632) 723-5851
Email: serramonte_ent@yahoo.com
Website: www.kalamansi.org
No comments:
Post a Comment