A juicy education for Filipinos

A typical Filipino consumer buys powdered juice or ready- to- drink (RTD) flavored juices or tea thinking that these contain the prescribed Vitamin C for his health. But what he does not know is that these powdered and pre-mixed flavored drinks have absolutely no Vitamin C at all as these contain only citric acids, flavorings and sugar.

They may look easy on the budget, particularly those packed in single- serve RTD. They actually contain no nutritional value, just refreshing, especially if chilled.

Yet, the real juices (as distinguished from drinks) are the RTD concentrates sold in either glass bottles or cartons that are normally imported and costs anywhere from P60 plus to over P100 per bottle.

“By launching Sunfresh juices in the Philippine market, we hope to educate Filipinos that if they truly desire to live healthy and meet their daily Vitamin C requirement, all they need is to drink real juices (not drinks or powdered) which will come up cheaper than taking those Vitamin C supplements,” said George Lim, Sunfresh Singapore Pte. Ltd. Assistant Manager for Export Division who flew in for the product launch at Sofitel last Nov. 18.

Sunfresh came into the Philippine market quietly last year and is now sold in major supermarkets and grocery chains in four variants (orange, apple, apple cranberry and pineapple).

The local distributor of Sunfresh is PTC Commercial Corp, a 25-year old company that has been importing major global food and beverage brands and distributing them locally.

Sherwin Choi, PTC president, told Star the company started 25 years ago importing only oils (canola, olive oil, corn oil). But its suppliers referred it to other food and beverage brands needing a partner in the Philippine market. Now, PTC carries 30 global and one local food and beverage brands in the local market.

Sunfresh also supplies major industrial users like hotels and restaurants, airlines and catering companies and retails the products in duty free shops and major supermarkets and groceries. The products, being pure fruit juices, have shelf life of one year “since there are no preservatives or artificial blends to them,” Choi said.

Singaporean Ambassador to the Philippines Ampalavanar Selverajah took the occasion to push for all Singaporean products which, he said, are noted for superior quality, reliability and dependability, unlike those coming from other parts of the globe.

He said he was delighted to see that Singaporean products have entered the Philippine and Asean markets citing that “Asean as a community must immediately bring down all tariff and non tariff barriers for a freer movement of goods and services in the region so that investments will pour in more aggressively to the bloc instead of to India and China.”