Pioneering Quality, Tasty Yet Cheap Value Added Tuna Productsff

When Aurora Amagan and her husband Jose arrived in General Santos City in 1980, little did she know that her enterprising spirit would set a manufacturing standard with which most tuna producers would now emulate.

This mother of six and two adopted children has, over the years, quietly built her reputation as manufacturer of, in her own words, "quality, tasty yet cheap" value-added tuna products.

Her Seafresh brand of processed tuna consumer products have already earned several international award for excellence, making her fledging firm, A&J Seafood and Marine Products, perhaps the most awarded medium-scale business enterprise in the country today.

Late last month, her daughter accepted in her behalf, the prestigious International Award for Excellence and Business Prestige (Gold Category) given during the 19th International Quality Summit Convention in New York, her eighth of such kind.

The distinction coincided with the opening of the 4th Annual Yaman Gensan celebration, a month-long activity designed to highlight the entrepreneurial drive of small and medium scale businessmen in the city.

Other awards won by A&J are the 2002 Most Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year given by the SMED Council; the Millennium Award Gold Badge for Global Quality Management given in Zurich, Switzerland in May 2004; The Golden Five Continents Award for Quality and Excellence given in France this year; the Royal Crown Excellence Award its received in Frankfurt, Germany also last year and The Global Quality Management given by the Trade Leaders Club in Madrid, Spain this year.

From trading to manufacturing

Of Kapampangan descent (she hails from San Fernando, Pampanga), Mrs. Amagan first ventured into shipping agricultural products to Manila in the mid-1980s, a few years after she and her second husband Jose, a member of the Philippine Coast Guard, settled here.

She was then supplying papaya, bananas, pineapples and vegetables to wet markets and supermarkets.

But by the early 90's, big companies like Dolefil and its subsidiary, Stanfilco, have taken over the lucrative Metro Manila market for fresh fruits.

Taking advantage of the demand of Dolefil for fresh seafood products, Amagan diversified her business interests and started to supply the giant multinational food corporation with octopus, abalone, giant squid, cuttlefish, round scad (galunggong) and tuna loins.

In between, she would process tuna trimmings that she sold to her friends. Before she knew it, orders for her processed tuna products, like longanisa, siomai, burger patties, nuggets, steak and other Filipino delicacies using tuna trimmings grew beyond her expectations.

From scrap to gold

It helped that her first husband, a Filipino-Chinese with whom she was left with five kids, was an owner of a chain of restaurants in San Fernando and she herself was a Kapampangan who are noted for their cuisine and culinary prowess.

That collateral business would soon blossom into a major product line for her family-owned company.

Now she regularly ships her products to Manila, Cebu and Davao. Her products also made significant inroads in Europe and the United States under the brand name Seafresh.

Demands from abroad are so huge A&J could not commit itself to supply its international buyers.

At the moment, the firm produces an average of one 40-foot container van for her export needs.

On the aggregate, A&J processes between 500 to 1,000 kilos for the local market.
Not bad for a product line that started in her kitchen.

Fate intervened

When Dolefil decided to phase out its seafood division, Amagan was forced to go her own way.

She would transfer her processing machinery to the fish port complex, a small but well-maintained space, a far cry from the spanking complex at Dolefil plant in Calumpang. She admitted that it was the supervisors and managers of Dolefil who encouraged her to venture into food processing rather than content herself with trading fresh chilled yellowfin tuna.

It was also Dolefil who imbued her with the importance of world-standard quality control over her processing methods. This technology is what she said separate her from other tuna food processors.

Trade secrets

Mrs. Amagan sheepishly declined to reveal her recipes but she said her products are all Halal-certified. “No pork, no beef or chicken meat whatsoever,” she said.

She also does not apply flour as extenders and binders and uses no artificial food preservatives. "No monosodium glutamate. All vegetables," she added.

For each product line, she however volunteered, Mrs. Amagan uses different vegetables as meat extender.She also uses only premium tuna meat trimmings which loins and special cuts are of export quality.

She has so perfected her recipe that one would hardly notice he or she is eating a tuna ham or a tuna siomai. And it is with personal touch.  â€œI am the chemist, research and development woman rolled into one,” she said.

Her new corporate world

When Amagan started her business in the 80s, all she had was P300,000 as “working capital.” Today, she estimated her business to be at P5 million worth. But that would soon drastically increase within the year.

Amagan proudly revealed she was able to obtain a P70-million loan package from Land Bank of the Philippines for the construction of a modern processing plant near the Market 4 building of the fish port. She is set to open the said plant in September.

A state-of the art machinery capable of processing up to five tons a day had already arrived last month and ready to be installed as soon as the building complex, complete with storage facilities, is finished.

Hopefully, she added, this would be the start of blossoming of the consumer oriented processed tuna products. “It was I who really started the industry,” she proudly beams of her pioneering efforts.

For all the accolades she is getting from international business and quality control groups, Mrs. Amagan has refused to advertise her products. “My products promote themselves,” she said.