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If there's a will, there's a way.
This seems to be the motto of micro entrepreneur Nenita Brandares and the 33 other housewife-members of the Balud Women's Association in Dalaguete town, southern Cebu in their bid to make money by making and selling mixed vegetable pickles.
Brandares said the group started their business venture in 2001 after they received their training from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
They would sell their homemade products in the neighborhood.
Brandares said income from the selling their pickles was not enough. She decided to sell Personal Collection products on the side.
In 2008, the group joined Season 4 of the Kapamilya Na Negosyo Na (KNN) competition to get a chance to get a bigger capital for their business.
They failed to win the top prize but the group bagged one of the consolation prizes and brought home P5,000.
?With that money, we mass produced our mixed vegetable pickles and started marketing them in grocery stores,? she said.
With a kilo of Ampalaya, Sayote, String Beans, Carrots, Ginger and Onion Bulbs, they were able to produce at least 48 bottles of the product, said Brandares.
?For our bottles, we buy from San Miguel in Mandaue as well as recycle bottles from sandwich spreads so that we can also save from our packaging expenses,? she said.
The group sells a bottle of mixed vegetable pickles at P40 while another product a bottle of pickled green papaya or achara sells for P35.
Brandares said that while they are based in Dalaguete, they market their pickles in Cebu City where the market is bigger.
?We once supplied Colonnade Mall but when our contact from the purchasing department resigned, we lost that, too,? Brandares said.
Brandares said they used to supply 48 bottles of pickles everyday in Colonnade which would always be sold out.
While the business experiencing slow sales this year, the group agreed to aggressively market their products and try to penetrate the grocery outlets and malls in Cebu to increase sales.
?As of now, we just produce only two boxes with 24 bottles in each box each week. With the slow sales, we even stopped displaying in our Parkmall KNN booth,? she said.
Brandares said that as of now, they are doing direct selling but are talking to some mall food tenants to get their supply from them.
?Last year we were able to have a net profit of P17,000,which we have divided among ourselves for Christmas,? said Brandares.
She said she hoped that this year, they could earn more to have a bigger take home dividends by December.
?Last year, I used my share to buy food for our Noche Buena and my kids were really happy. This year of course I would want my kids to again be happy that we have something prepared for Christmas that is why all of us in the group have worked hard to sell more,? Brandares said.
