The raging COVID-19 pandemic has made consumers more acutely aware of the need to use food as medicine to keep themselves and their families healthy.
This growing consumer need spells good news for manufacturers of organic milk products such as the family-run HiPP, an established German baby food company and recognized as a baby food expert for more than 120 years, which recently established a foothold in the Philippines.
HiPP CEO Stefan Hipp told the Inquirer that the Philippines was an “interesting market” for the European giant because of its large population of over 100 million and birth rate that is among the highest in the world. And with the median disposable income growing with rising affluence, the sales and distribution of the more expensive organic milk products becomes a more viable prospect.
“What makes us special is that quality is the most important thing. We never compromise,” Hipp said in an interview. Such adherence to the highest levels of quality control means a higher selling price than nonorganic milk products, but the company and its partners believe that there are enough consumers who are willing to make the greater investment in more healthy products.
Ordinary dairy cows in commercial farms, for example, can produce 10,000 liters of milk a year, much more than the 6,000-8,000 produced by cows raised specifically to produce certified organic milk.
“That makes for a big difference in quality,” said Hipp, a member of the fourth generation of the Hipp family that has established itself as a pioneer in organic farming with the company now considered one of the world’s largest processors of organic raw materials.
Advanced Nutritional Technologies (Antech), which partnered with HiPP to bring the first certified organic milk products range in the Philippines, believes that a sizable number of Filipino families are willing to pay a premium for that enhanced quality, especially during a health crisis.
Antech CEO Edwin Feist says that for HiPP and Antech, the business is not just about profit but also about a shared responsibility to do good to children by fulfilling the corporate promise to provide the market with certified organic products. INQ