PhilFAQS

Today I was busy with my email, at the same time thinking about how I really ought to get a blog post written.

I was answering friend’s email about a fish company down in General Santos City, Mindanao, when I got a bit long-winded (hey, how often does that happen ?) and it dawned upon me I had essentially written a blog post right here in my friend’s answer.  So, here it is.

Our conversation got started a few days ago when I related to him that a local dealer had started a small business linked up with a big fish supplier down in “Gen San”.  General Santos City is pretty much the capital of commercial fishing in the Philippines, and probably you know something about Gen San even if you didn’t know the name before, because all the major US brands are included in the customer list of the big fishing companies there.

Of course you aren’t ever going to get any of the top of the line products there in the US, the best tuna goes to Japan,where you can easily wind up paying as much as $600 USD per pound for the best cuts of the absolute top of the line tuna (I lived in Japan and I’ve seen it, but don’t worry, I never paid for it )

The product that winds up going to the US certainly isn’t bad, though, and there is good canned tuna in the stores here, relatively cheap, as well as many other “fishy” things from Gen San.

A few days before Holy Week commenced, one of my sisters-in-law showed me a tiny little flier from a local place … actually a private house, in a subdivision near by.  They were offering several varieties and sizes of shrimp, tuna steaks, calamari rings, and tuna siomai (show-my) (little bits of tuna meat wrapped in egg roll style wrappers, ready to be steamed or deep-fried).

The product was all guaranteed flash frozen in General Santos City the same day it came off the boat, and the frozen retail size packs would be delivered to your door any time by motorcycle messenger, just text to the number on the form and pay the driver on delivery.

Sounded like a great idea to me, the prices seemed reasonable and the variety of sea food here in local super markets is … well, not all that impressive.  I was particularly interested because of all the questions I get about starting a business in the Philippines, and no one seems to think past copying the little barely profitable Internet cafe on the next corner, or selling the same cheese snacks and cigarettes for 25 centavos’ less per pack than the neighbors sari-sari store.

Hmm, flash frozen fish, product of the Philippines, and you need nothing more to get the doors open than a chest freezer or two (cheap ones readily available at SM Hypermarket) and the ubiquitous cell phone.

We texted and ordered some samples and so far, everything has been great.  I hope the place slays in business, though, because like so many local businesses it almost seems as if they are running some sort of illegal syndicate operation … you have to know some one who knows some one just to buy there … like the US “Speakeasies” back in the 1820 or 1930.

Now that's a decent hotdog!

Another interesting example came up today.  I pass two different hot dog kiosks in the mall … both have been there, I think, the whole time I have lived here.  They don’t interest me because they just have the same old bright red nondescript Filipino franks on the hot rollers, turning hour after hour, about as appealing as … I don’t know what, but not appealing.

Today the Unofficial Cook and I were walking past one of them and I saw a tiny,  I mean tiny sign in the bottom corner of the ‘sneeze guard’ over their pathetic little dogs and saw the brand names “Johnsonville”.

I don’t know if you are familiar with Johnsonville, but it’s a nation-wide US commercial brand that reproduces a creditable copy of the real German brat, likewise Polish Kielbasa and a few other sausage variants.

I laughed and asked the girl if I could have a big, fat Johnsonville brat.  This is the Philippines, though, so of course she answered ‘Out of stock, sir”, but then of standing there and seeming proud of not being able to serve me, she led me ’round the corner to their second location inside the super market food court.  Thank you, my dear, your initiative and helpfulness did not go unnoticed.

There a smiling guy  pulled out a frozen package of real Johnsonville Bratwurst and told me, “Cooked to order sir, takes just 5 minutes in the microwave and on the grill.”  You could have knocked me over with a feather.

I begged off for today since we had just eaten, but you can be sure I’ll go back.  I asked the kid why I have never seen them before and you know what the young fellow told me?

“The owner told us to keep them hidden because Filipinos don’t like them.”

“Only in the Philippines” .  Well, you can draw your own conclusions regarding “Filipinos don’t like them” … but at the S&R Membership store in Manila where we go every couple of months or so for a “taste of the US”, virtually all the customers are Filipinos and those Johnsonville brats fly out of the store, priced about twice what they cost in the USA.

You know I often go to the mall around lunch time and do my walking there and often bring back food for Mita and I for lunch.  Can you imagine how many brats I would have bought over the past three years ago if the silly hotdog guy hadn’t been keeping them hidden.  Go figure.  You can do business in the Philippines, if you let yourself do so.

Hmm, I think I just wrote myself a blog post here, didn’t I?

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