Patis and toyo overtake sardines

Having a business show on television has afforded me many opportunities to get valuable insights into the sectors that we choose randomly to feature in the show Business & Leisure (Sky Cable, Channel 13, Tuesday evenings at 10 o’clock with replays on Makisig Network, Saturday evenings at 11 o’clock and on Viva Prime Channel Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday). We get to chat with the company CEOs or managing directors, people who actually run the business and not just sit in the captain’s chair.

Addressing the recent food crisis that hit the country, we got to talk with the presidents of the different associations – poultry, hog raisers, egg producers, rice farmers, etc. Hearing from them first hand about the problems they encounter in the conduct of their business made us realize that while the consumers have a problem in the spiraling costs of food, these manufacturers/producers have their fair share of it because all the other components of production have gone up. They are not spared from the domino effect, but like the consumers, they bear the brunt of it. It seems that the middlemen or traders get off lightly compared to them because they do not have huge direct costs except for transport/delivery.

Consider the humble chicken egg. At a farm gate price of P3.45, these same eggs will cost us from P4.70 to P5 per piece when they land on our kitchen table. That is a pretty big spread.

The same goes for chicken. When they leave the farm, they were priced at P68-70/kilo. In the retail market, they are sold at P120/k.

Recently, we got to talk with a big local sardine manufacturer, Universal Canning Inc. (UCI), makers of the well-known brand Family’s and Master Sardines. The Managing Director is the youthful Dr. Leoncio Kaw.

UCI started in 1941 when they had to put up a canning factory to accommodate the fish catch of their mother company during the seasons of abundance. Recently, they were in the news because of their expansion plans which included the inauguration of their new blast freezer, their ice and cold storage facility, and their Club Can manufacturing plant.

The club can is interesting because this would mark their entry into the European market which prefers this type of canning. UCI has been exporting canned sardines to North America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East but has not successfully penetrated the European market. One of their variants, Sardine with Ampalaya sells well in North America because of the health benefits of ampalaya. But the company prides itself in their competitiveness, both in quality and in packing.

In Southeast Asia, it faces stiff competition in Vietnam, China and Thailand because labor costs in these countries are much lower than ours. Then too, there is the recent spate of increases in practically everything that goes into sardine-making-the price of fish, tin (which comes from China), carton, tomato sauce, labor cost, label, marketing. The root cause of course is the unreasonably elevated price of crude oil.

Even the lowly “tamban” fish used for sardines has gone up because of high fuel costs. From P8-12/k two years ago, they now go for P20-22/k. With everything much higher now, it is again the consumers who will bear the brunt.

Dr. Kaw of UCI said something that caught my attention. He noticed a significant change in the buying habits of Filipinos. A small can of sardines with four small pieces of fish swimming in flavorful tomato sauce would have to be stretched among a family of four, but it was still a meal.

Whereas before, sardines counted as a staple food for an average Filipino family, they now face stiff competition from other products. When he mentioned the competition, I got floored. Sardines are now facing competition from the likes of patis and soy sauce which is what some families can only afford in the face of today’s food prices! With sardines out of the equation, dinner is rice and patis or toyo for Mang Pandoy and the rest like him.

That’s my definition of gloomy news. It helps that Dr. Kaw sees a drop in the selling price of sardines in the near future. As they say at UCI, what good will it do them if they insist on bringing up the price of sardines if nobody can afford to buy them anyway?

Incidentally, this is also what the egg producers say. Even if the cost of feeds have gone up tremendously (more than 50 percent of the unit cost of one egg), they cannot jack up the price to reflect the true costs. As a result, the egg producers of Batangas, the country’s egg basket, have been absorbing the loss since January of this year. Let’s hope the middlemen absorb some of these and pass on the savings to our consumers. Eggs are the cheapest source of protein, and definitely healthier than toyo or patis.

Let’s hope too the price of sardines goes down sooner than later. It would definitely help if fuel prices go down significantly to reflect a more accurate picture of the world market. Then maybe this Christmas season will not be as gloomy for many of us.

Memories...memories...Jeepneys and taxi cabs

In the last couple of outings, we have omitted our Memories series because of space constraints. We’re back! A reader, Francisco Mangubat from Sampaloc, Manila sent in his contribution re the taxis and buses of old.

I remember them only too well. The bus lines lording it over Manila were JD, G-Liner and MD. Another one is Zenaida Lines owned by my wife’s family which covered Metro Manila and even Bulacan.

Here’s Mr. Mangubat’s memories: “.... I remember taking the jeepney from Sampaloc to Quiapo, paying ten centavos and carrying my small brother on my lap so I wouldn’t have to pay for him.... The taxis then were of two kinds: the 15-5,which meant 15 centavos flag down and five centavos for every x number of kilometers; the other was 20-10 of the Yellow Taxi run by the Monserrat family, and Golden Taxi.

That was the time when we had Mercedes Benz 180Ds taxis by City Cab plying the Manila and suburbs route.....”

Thanks for the memories, Mr. Mangubat.

Ok guys, you have some of your own? Share them by writing them in.                              

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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