Healthy-Snack Venture from GenSan Looking to Make It Big in the Pasalubong Industry

For most people, the ultimate dream is to start their own business. The trio of Chad D. Dorego, Alex Emmanuelle G. Aponesto, and Kaye M. Peratero may not be there yet, but they are halfway through with Good Chips- a healthy snack venture from GenSan.

Initially, their goal was to develop a product that would be known as a trademark pasalubong from GenSan, the Tuna Capital of the Philippines.

“When people say GenSan, all they can think of is tuna, so we wanted another product as additional pasalubong, and we decided to make use of root crops,” said Dorego in an interview.

Healthy snacks made from root crops weren’t exactly new. To stand out, what they did is to experiment using three varieties including sweet potato, taro, and cassava.

Good entrepreneurship of Good Chips

All of their raw ingredients are being sourced right now, but the trio are hoping to eventually work directly with farmers.

“Our farmers in GenSan are indigenous people. If we grow (as a business), we are looking forward to work directly with the farmers so that we can lower the pricing, and at the same time we can also be part of the farming operation because we want to make sure that the root crops we are getting are organic,” added Dorego.

Despite doing everything manually from peeling to packing, their business can produce around 80 to 100 packs a day from 30 kilos of root crops. They have heavily invested in packaging. In fact, most of their initial investment of P15,000 went to purchasing packaging materials.

“Outside it’s craft (paper), but inside its foil to prevent oil stains because we fly the chips (to buyers). It is important in packaging (that) there is a window to make it attractive to the consumers, they can see inside… We print a sticker for the name and manually stick it,” Dorego said.

A lot of thought and trial-and-error also went into determining the three-month shelf life of their chips. They opened one pack per week and then determined the exact point when the chips are still suitable for consumption.

To these three, the ultimate goal is to inspire other entrepreneurs to try social enterprise where business benefits the community. Currently, Good Chips has found a market in Manila and Cebu.

via Business World