CEBU, Philippines - After establishing their products for hogs and poultry, Pilmico Foods Corporation, a wholly-owned company of the Aboitiz Equity Ventures, now ventures into the multi-billion gamefowl industry.
Pilmico Animal Nutrition Corporation president and chief executive officer Sabin Aboitiz said that they are very eager to penetrate the industry, which is quite a huge untapped market with over 40 million gamefowls all over.
Pilmico recently launched its newest product for gamefowls called Salto at the Cebu International Convention Center, Mandaue City, where hundreds of gamefowl enthusiasts, animal feed suppliers and dealers and hogs and chicken growers were invited.
It is a "sunrise industry" according to Aboitiz who said that they are very committed to the new venture adding that they are optimistic with the new products since it complements their other products on hog and poultry.
Norie Bermudez, PILMICO Regional Sales Manager for Visayas said that it took them more than a year to study the market and its needs and most importantly the formulation that the gamefowls would need.
"We didn't want to get in to something half-baked," shared Bermudez adding that they also needed to focus first on their hog products first which they have already built a good market with.
She said that they took into consideration everything from the concept of the gamefowl industry, breeding and the growing and the reaction of the breed and the performance.
Bermudez said that the launch is done in Cebu since it is their biggest network in the Visayas but they would eventually bring it nationally and in fact is available all over the country.
Hendrel Cabral, Vice President for Sales and Marketing shared that the event serves as a launchpad and they would soon have it other parts of the country. Cabral said that at present, their other products are available in over 300 stores nationwide and would hopefully increase with the presence of Salto.
Cabral said that they are optimistic of the same support they would have with Salto since it is assured of the nutrient needed for gamefowls to ensure that it would bring it out the best amount of potential.
In fact, they have supported local gamefowl derbies and had very good feedback from the owners who used their products.
Cabral said that being new to the industry where there are already a lot of companies producing gamefowl feeds, they have practically the same prices in other products but they are positioning themselves more on the value high value of the feed rather than the affordability since they assure that their feeds are performance feeds of the best quality. —AJ de la Torre