A LEADING meat processor in northern Mindanao recently opened its plant to produce more quality and bigger, in volume, products to supply the need of consumers in the island.
In its grand plant opening in Barangay Alae, Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon, Slers Industry Inc.(SII), the maker of the famous ham, and other breakfast meat products, said that with many other brands of processed food flooding the market in the country, it opted to supply only the Mindanao consumers, a business decision that the company said makes more sense.
Mercedes Pelaez-Mejia, SII managing director, said that they want their products sold in Mindanao rather than compete in the Luzon and Visayas markets where it is more capital-extensive.
The new SII plant, at present, processes five tons of pork a day, producing ham, tocino, logganisa, bacon, sausage and pastrami, a beef by-product.
Slers employs about 150 workers at present.
The Pelaez family started the business in 1969 when their mother Fely sold her homemade ham to neighbors at P1 a kilo in Camp Philips, Bukidnon, where her husband Raul worked with Del Monte Philippines.
It was by word of mouth that Fely Pelaez’s ham was known to customers coming from different parts of the country.
Orders are received anytime of the year, but most especially at the start of the yuletide season.
Mejia said the brand name Slers came about when the Pelaez siblings started expanding the ham business in 2006 and produced other meat products.
Slers stands for the names of the Pelaez siblings, namely, Shirley, Litlit, Earl, Ray and Sharon.
Mejia said they sought the help from line government agencies such as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board (RTWPB), among others, and learned how to run a food-processing business until SII became a United States Assistance for International Development (USAID)-assisted project.
She said the “chicharon” (deep fried pork’s skin or pork crackling) one of Slers’s big sellers, came as an accident when their inventory of pork skin were already mounting in freezers.
“We had no idea how to dispose of the pork’s skin until we thought of learning from the internet how to cook chicharon. We did the trial-and-error approach until we perfected our brand of chicharon you find in the market,” Mejia said, adding that “it was a problem that became an opportunity.”
Slers brand is everywhere in Mindanao, particularly in big stores and malls.
Although SII tried the markets out of Mindanao, but found out that selling perishable goods, such as meat products required huge investment that made the price of their products no longer competitive compared to other brands.
“And we decided to stay in Mindanao where we started our humble beginning,” Mejia said.
Published in the Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro newspaper on September 11, 2014.
