When a group of senior citizens went into the dairy industry eight years ago, making a profit was the last thing on their minds.
All successful entrepreneurs, the gentlemen were embarking on a social “experiment”—wanting to help lower the cost of milk to bring the highly nutritious beverage to as many Filipino children as possible and to show that even modest enterprises could afford to pay workers the right wages and all the benefits they are entitled to.
They also hoped they could launch some kind of revolution—get small farmers to start modest dairy production ventures with one or two milking cows.
For the men, it was a leap of faith as nobody knew the first thing about dairy farming.
Advertising man Rey Anthony G. David Jr. said he simply followed “Moses”.
Moses is former senator Ramon Magsaysay, Jr., only son of the beloved Philippine president who, both as a public servant and a private citizen, made the advancement of Philippine agriculture and everybody involved in it an important personal advocacy.
Magsaysay said the Real Fresh Dairy Farms Inc. in Bay, Laguna was an “initiative for health and food security,” as he pointed out that only 1 percent of the country’s dairy consumption came from local sources.
He said the founders were united in their belief in the vision to contribute to the development of the local dairy industry to boost the nutritional status of young Filipinos.
Advocacy
For the farms’ founding fathers, who have nurtured and sustained their own successful enterprises, Real Fresh was more of an advocacy, an opportunity to do something for the country and for Filipinos, rather than another vehicle to demonstrate their business savvy and make a profit.
Today, almost a decade later, Real Fresh can say it has accomplished two of its avowed missions: To produce 100 percent premium farm-fresh milk and high quality dairy products from superior and healthy cows following the best agricultural practices and using modern farming technologies; and to demonstrate that Filipino-made fresh milk and dairy products are at par or superior to imported brands in the local market.
The campaign to raise awareness about the nutritional benefits of milk and to increase milk consumption among Filipinos is continuing, but efforts “to support local farmers and residents by providing them a steady source of income near or accessible to their homes” have hit a few snags.
The farm sources its feed from neighboring farms, giving farmers an additional source of income, marketing expert Danilo K. Dimayuga said. They also bought additional milk from small dairy farms that met the quality requirements and standards of Real Fresh, shortening the time between collection and processing for the micro entrepreneurs.
But Dimayuga said getting other farmers to start their own micro dairy farms was difficult because of the high cost of milk producing cows like the Holstein-Sahiwal breed, which costs P120,000 each.
Real Fresh even distributed milking cows to some farmer partners in the beginning but even the cost of feeding the livestock proved too much for the recipients that they eventually returned the cows to the farm.
David said there had been some costly mistakes along the way and, despite their previous business successes, there was a “long learning curve” but they were focused on Magsaysay’s succinct summary of their basic objective—to allow each Filipino child to have a glass of fresh milk as often as possible.
“If a child is undernourished, even if he studied hard, he would learn little,” David said. The highly nutritious milk was a convenient way to provide children vital nutrients and minerals.
By following their own Moses, David said they were making an investment in future generations of Filipinos.
He added that their modest social entrepreneurship initiative, which now also includes a processing plant, shattered the “myth” that small ventures could not afford to pay legally mandated wages and benefits. “We were all exposed to corporate life and were [against] shortchanging people,” he said. With Real Fresh, he said they were able to demonstrate that doing right by one’s employees, which number about 40, could be done no matter how small a business is.
After eight years, Real Fresh is breaking even, able to meet its operational costs from its own earnings.
Dimayuga said the prices of their products, with the brand name Holly’s (after the Holstein-Sahiwal milking cows imported from New Zealand), were competitive despite being made of real fresh milk and not from imported powdered milk.
The company is also growing and diversifying its product offerings. Dimayuga said they were now producing fresh milk, chocolate milk, kesong puti and yogurt. Gouda cheese is seasonally made, like for the coming Christmas holidays
David said Magsaysay’s success in working with local partners in all the enterprises the former senator initiated was enough for him to sign up for the dairy farm project “without asking for a project study or a due diligence report.”
He said he knew there would be hardly any money in the venture for the founding partners but they were “paying it forward to future generations.”
And a new generation is now continuing what their elders started.
Katherine Pia V. Arroyo, president of Real Fresh Dairy Farms, is the daughter of a founding member who has passed. David’s own son, Juan Miguel, is managing director of the Laguna Creamery.
Both Dimayuga and David are also highly appreciative of the young team that handles marketing and distribution.
With a team that was “young, creative and energetic,” David said their dairy business was now “established and sustainable.”
The partners are hopeful they will still be able to achieve their goal of turning as many small farmers as possible into micro dairy farmers with the support of the government.
Dimayuga said they hoped the government would support efforts to provide milking cows to farmers by subsidizing the purchase of livestock and other inputs, like feeds.
David said the initiative provided an opportunity to show that farming could still be a good source of livelihood, which could help boost agriculture in the country.
In fact, he said he hoped it would provide returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) an idea of what they could do with their hard-earned money.
Instead of low-yield investments in urban areas, David said “OFWs could invest in agricultural ventures, like a dairy farm.”
But what they have achieved so far, modest though they may be, have strengthened the commitment of Real Fresh’s founders to their original vision: “To advance the dairy industry in general with the ultimate goal of reducing the country’s dependence on dairy imports by promoting agribusiness and providing economic opportunities in the countryside.”