HOW DOES one love malunggay? Let Peter Petisme count the ways.
For breakfast, there’s malunggay herbal tea. Then he will offer pancit canton and bihon fortified with Moringa oleifera’s goodness for main dish. There’s also merienda favorites – corn bits, cookies, kropeck, shing-a-lings and banana chips.

Integrating business principles with healthy options, Mr. Pete, as he is known in his circle, is aware that Moringa oleifera, or malunggay, is fast gaining awareness among Filipinos.

“Malunggay is for everybody. It’s one of the most nutritious plants in the world,” says the 70-year-old owner of MLGS Herbal Products. “It has 46 antioxidants and 90 nutrients.”

He has turned the green leafy wonder into various popular food forms, and the best part is, he has retained the original taste, enriching it with all of malunggay’s go, grow and glow goodness, with no hint of the veggie’s grassy aftertaste.

“It doesn’t taste like malunggay but the nutrients are there,” he says.
Mr. Pete claims that malunggay leaves are known to be good for digestion and urinary tract problems.

He is still exploring other food on which he can sprinkle malungay’s nutrients.

So far, the bestsellers on his list are the instant malunggay tea, pancit canton and bihon.

“There’s more to come and we’re still coming up with new ones,” he adds.

Peter is referring to his new line of products that are on their way to grocers’ shelves.

He is now in talks with his business partners to come out with malunggay-fortified sardines, pesto, fortune cookies and capsules by September.

He claims that the malunggay-fortified sardines from a major sardines maker may well be the “complete” healthy processed viand.

“There’s omega-3, lycopene from tomato sauce and nutrients from malunggay. Now, how can you beat that?”

For those who want to take malunggay supplement in its purest form, he says his herbal company will soon come out with a brand that is going to be different from all the others. The food supplement, he says, will come in industry standard-capped pills.

As for the fortune cookies, the good news is not only contained in the message, it’s also in the nutrient-fortified cookie itself.

Toll manufacture

Mr. Pete has managed to expand his array of products without spending too much on the processing plants through toll manufacturing.

“I don’t have my own factory,” he said, but as a former distributor of major food labels in Luzon, he has managed to persuade manufacturers to work on his products. He has also enlisted the help of a food technologist who acts as his consultant.

Toll manufacturing has allowed Mr. Pete to concentrate on his innovative malunggay formulations at his farm in Morong, Rizal. He talks to known local producers of cookies, noodles and tea to manufacture the products for him.

He starts out by proposing his ideas to incorporate malunggay in certain food products to local food makers. Then he tests for the right ratio and serving of malunggay to be mixed with the product.

On his 2,000-square-meter malunggay plantation, the plant leaves are harvested. The leaves are then oven-dried before they are minced.

It takes about 15 kilos of fresh malunggay leaves to produce a kilo of fine, course powder, or flakes, of pure Moringa oleifera. He then sells these finished products to food processors.

‘Balikbayan’ favorite

Mr. Pete’s products may be found on the shelves of Robinsons Supermarkets throughout Luzon.

Last March, he opened a stall at Tiendesita’s in Pasig City, which has become “a balikbayan destination.”

The demand is high among balikbayan shoppers who want to bring a taste of Filipino food abroad, he says.

For the former Rizal Rotary Club president, the business is an extension of his advocacy, where he regularly supplies food for schoolchildren in Rizal through a feeding program. Through partnerships and a grant from his friends from the Rotary Club, he bought a van which he had converted into a mobile feeding station.

He has also partnered with Kapuso Foundation to sustain the feeding program. For every purchase of his products worth P40 and above, a peso goes to feed the children.

Mr. Pete still refuses to take a backseat in his business. He continues to experiment on ways to bring malunggay’s benefits to more people across the country.