MANILA, Philippines - In 1996, Flor Valdepeñas, then working as area sales manager for a food and beverage conglomerate, attended a company meeting. In that conference, someone delivered a talk on the rudiments of the bottling industry. The speech, Valdepeñas recalled, was so well-defined she sought to find a way to talk to the speaker again. So she asked for his business card and the two went their separate ways.
After her retirement, Valdepeñas helped her son in his soft-drink business. Yes, she admitted, the speech motivated them to embark on a soft-drink dealership. “If not for that speech, I wouldn’t have understood the bottling business. That talk opened my world to the nitty-gritty of a soft-drink dealership. It was delivered in such a way that all the details were hashed out,” she said.
Emboldened by the financial potential of soft-drink dealership, the Valdepeñas family invested their life savings and poured everything into becoming soft-drink dealers. They started with one truck and soon expanded to several vehicles and two warehouses. Just as they had started to recoup their investment, their goods manufacturer was sold to another firm, then to another multinational. Two years into the partnership, Valdepeñas was struck with what she termed “unjust corporate rubrics.”
“It was starting to become a nightmare,” she recalled. With funds dwindling and confidence waning, Valdepeñas remembered how she got into the dealership business in the first place. Unearthing the yellowed calling card, she sought ways to get in touch with its owner. She found out that the speaker was now part of a new company that was also into the bottling world: Gerry Garcia, currently the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Asiawide Refreshments Corporation (ARC), the licensed manufacturer and distributor of RC Cola in the Philippines.
From Iguig, Cagayan, where Valdepeñas and her business are located, she traveled to Manila to set up an appointment with Garcia. “From our first meeting, I knew things would soon change. Never had I encountered a business executive who was so accommodating,” she said. While RC Cola was already experiencing leaps of growth in part of the country, the company felt that it was not yet ready to pursue Cagayan, the northern tip of Luzon where Valdepeñas and her 8 Ball Enterprises were located. But the entrepreneurial spirit in Valdepeñas prevailed.
“I knew I was in good hands and the product would not have succeeded in Manila if it did not taste good,” she said. She ended ties with her cola’s manufacturer and signed with ARC. Her beginnings proved daunting; not only did she have to deal with ruthless marketing ploys by competitors but she also had to put up with the long travel. ARC did not have a bottling plant near them so Valdepeñas still had to travel to Pampanga where the nearest ARC plant was in order to get RC Cola products.
“Imagine, we had to allocate three days to get our products but we were resolute about making it work. We wanted to show our consumers how great a product RC Cola drinks are. Through prayers and hard work, we were able to penetrate the market with RC cola products. What made us survive was our trust in each other,” Valdepeñas stated. “ARC,” she said, “is a great business partner. During the worst times, I was in constant communication with Sir Gerry and ARC management but they never wavered in their support. Whenever I had an issue, I could contact them any time. I was texting Sir Gerry in the wee hours of the night and he would respond!” she said.
Today, there is no slowing down Valdepeñas and her 8 Balls Enterprise. To further propel the growth of RC Cola in the region, ARC recently opened a new plant in nearby Cauayan, Isabela. The new plant will not only help Valdepeñas get more RC Cola products to her customers but will also bring in jobs to people living in the region. Who knew that a business card could go this far?