Turning a hobby into big business

Bio Research, which started as a hobby pet shop 40 years ago but has since diversified into agro-industrial lines, has outlived the ups and downs of pet shop business because of its determined effort to expand its market base among young pet hobbyists.

Bio Research is collaborating with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in promoting the ornamental fish industry in the country.

"We provide free fish to schoolchildren who conduct their field trips in our Hypermart and production facilities in Sucat, especially from public schools, so that the children will learn the value of caring and taking full responsibility for the pets and ultimately, propagating them (by buying the mates) which they can sell to classmates and neighbors as their start-up business," said Wilson Ang, Bio Research founder who himself started this business (in 1962) when he was 13 years old first as a hobby then nurturing it to a highly diversified enterprise now.

Bio Research does not only give away to schoolchildren the pet fish in plastic bags but "before giving them away, we teach the children how to care for them and what needs to be done to maintain and grow them well, " Ang said.

In addition, Bio Research keeps its Sucat Hypermart open for school field trips and even pre-arranged neighborhood children’s activities "to ensure that we expand the market base for pet hobbyists."

The pet shop industry has expanded significantly since the eighties but the shop operators are highly segmented with some shops selling only dogs and cats, or aquariums and fishes, or birds and reptiles or livestock with pet foods and accessories on the side. But only Bio Research has succeeded in coming up with complete offering of five live animals products (namely dogs and cats, fish, birds, small animals and reptiles), pet food and veterinary products and services as well as animal services, said Richard Limon, marketing services manager of Bio Research.

"Our thrust in reaching out to the schoolchildren – from nursery to grade school – is to ensure that we create new markets at the bottom rung (or the beginner base) of the hobbyist triangle who will eventually become regular hobbyists, then mature hobbyists and lastly advanced hobbyists," Limon said.

Together with several other pet shop owners and pet breeders, Bio Research has crafted with BFAR the ornamental fish industry roadmap that will ensure the long term sustainability of the sector and help it venture into the export market eventually.

Dubbed the "Palamuting Isda" project, the roadmap seeks to establish the foundation for the development and upgrading of the ornamental fish industry and generating employment and livelihood opportunities, particularly for the countryside.

Though the Philippine ornamental fish industry is still at a stage when it is highly dependent on imported breeds for propagation purposes, it has been exporting to the globe, albeit minimally yet, Ang said.

The world requirement for ornamental fish has grown from less than $10 million in 1983 to over $250 million in 2003. Of this, the Philippines managed to get only 3.8 percent

The ornamental fish project involves small to large scale breeders, grow out and conditioning operators; technologically integrated process using the advantages of freshwater lakes, ponds and rivers as production and grow out areas; the use of state of the art central hatchery operations (which Bio Research has in its production facilities in Sucat and in Batangas and Laguna) broostock selection, genetic selection, specie development, close monitoring of mass production and stringent quality control.

The main species dominating the global ornamental fish market are: livebearers; koi; angelfish, barbs, tetras, gourami, cichlids, and corydoras.

Major importing countries are: US with 25 percent; Japan, 18 percent; Germany, nine percent; France, eight percent and UK, seven percent and others with 35 percent.

The Philippines, being a tropical country, has a distinct advantage of enjoying a year-round tropical climate (therefore the lakes are already prepared for large scale production and grow out of tropical fish); high water quality; presence of rich natural feeds and high productivity, strong and healthy "nature tempered" fish.