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Dagupan City bangus business sees opportunities, growth through DOST-SETUP
DAGUPAN CITY — A local bangus manufacturer in Pangasinan shared how their livelihood and opportunities grew as a business with the support provided by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
Established in 2017, Elisha Bay Dagupan Bangus and Seafoods started out as a business that aimed to provide jobs for the local community, and not as the main source of income for its owners.
"Ang talagang goal po namin kaya kami nag-start ng enterprise is to provide jobs sa community, yung underprivileged women at PWDs, kasi iba po yung negosyo talaga namin… Ang target lang po namin noon is to break even para lang maka-generate ng livelihood kasi iba nga po yung cash cow namin," said business owner Raiisa Vargas.
(Our actual goal for this enterprise was to provide jobs to the community, for underprivileged women and PWDs, since we had a different business… Our real target back then was just to break even to generate livelihoods since we had a different cash cow.)
But then the pandemic hit. "Nagulat kami, yung dalawang businesses namin, hindi po essential, tumigil. Pero yung bangus, yun yung bumuhay sa amin," she said.
(We were shocked when our two businesses that weren’t essential had to shut down. It was the bangus business that kept us afloat.)
Vargas and her husband Randy sought assistance from DOST in 2018 under the Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (DOST-SETUP), which helps micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) adopt technological innovations for their businesses.
“Natulungan kami sa SETUP. It started the ball rolling po, na doon po kami nag-start mag-process ng FDA, ng documents,” Vargas added.
(SETUP was able to help us. It started the ball rolling, and that was when we were able to start processing FDA and documents.)
From June 2018 to May 2019, the business secured equipment for testing, labelling and packaging in the first phase of the assistance.
In the second phase, from 2021 to 2024, Elisha Bay was able to acquire equipment for operations procedures such as pressure cookers, glass freezers, and stainless steel tables.
It currently produces 100 to 150 boxes of bottled products and around 1,800 to 2,000 deboned bangus products a month.
With 19 staff and a growing list of products, Elisha Bay is now looking into expanding and exploring further commercialization.
The company has also been able to secure a US-FDA registration number and is able to to the US, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
DOST Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. said that the department's role in supporting local businesses such as Elisha Bay is to scale up their technological capacities.
“For businesses to flourish, scaling production but still of good quality would be the key, so that's why no other department in government would play our role… We also wanted to look at their operation to see if we can help them in scaling up production like robotics or even use of AI in their planning, resource planning,” he said.
DOST has helped more than 100,000 businesses under SETUP, and intends to select 10,000 from these businessesto boost with newer technologies and upskilling.
“I think if we can do that and really develop yung tinatawag namin [what we call] smart factories, then we can maybe accomplish what Thailand has accomplished… The real challenge is the appetite of the enterprises to use technology and the availability of seed money to procure technology,” he said.
“We want to graduate micro to small, small to medium, and medium to large [enterprises], and later on make sure that they also assist similar enterprises so that they can develop a value chain… I think once na may sumikat nang mga Filipino enterprises [I think once some Filipino enterprises become more popular] they can also bring up the popularity of Filipino enterprises like food manufacturers,” he added. — BM, GMA Integrated News
