ORLANDO DULAY: Microloans and Winning Recipe Open Doors for Food Manufacturer
It was while selling barbecue, halo-halo (a mix of gelatin, beans, sweetened bananas and jackfruit topped with shaved ice and milk) and buko (young coconut) juice from a roadside stall that Mr. Orlando Dulay first thought about selling a food product ideal for pasalubong (take-home gift). His property was along the Nueva Vizcaya-Manila national highway, where hundreds of travelers bound for Manila and the North passed by everyday. His customers were mostly these travelers who would stop, buy a quick snack, and leave with a suggestion that Mr. Dulay sell something for them to take as pasalubong. Mr. Dulay knew he had an ideal location, what he needed was a product that would sell.
In 1992, Mr. Dulay attended a series of seminars for small and medium enterprises sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry. There, he learned the basics of manufacturing buko pie. His degree in Chemistry helped Mr. Dulay improve on the basic recipe and come up with the winning formula for G & B Buko Pie. He started his business with just an assistant and his wife, Elizabeth, who tended to the store. Initially, they had a daily production of a dozen pies
It was also at one of those seminars that he learned about the microfinance services of the FICO Bank, a third rollout bank of USAID’s Microenterprise Access to Banking Services Program. “It was in a seminar that I learned that there are private banks and government agencies providing microfinancing. Because I found it difficult to avail of loans from the government, I applied for a loan with FICO Bank. When my application for PhP30,000 (about $550) was approved, I used the money to buy additional pie pans and pots. My business was then growing and I wanted to increase production.”
Today, Mr. Dulay’s pies are the favorite pasalubong of travelers and Barangay Tuao, where his newly renovated eatery and store is located, is now synonymous with G & B Buko Pies. Mr. Dulay now employs 39 workers and sells an average of 2,000 pies a day. He had just finished paying his latest loan from FICO Bank and plans to take out bigger loan to buy a rotary oven, which will further improve and increase his output. He is working on further establishing G & B as a brand name by improving marketing through partnerships with his main suppliers. “Nestle and Magnolia are helping me with my store’s signage and marketing materials. I plan to open a branch in another town and to offer individual-sized, mini-buko pies.”
In 2004, Mr. Dulay won the Luzon Citibank Microentrepreneur of the Year Award for the Maunlad Category. He was cited for his ability to grow his business, his contribution to employment generation and the local economy.
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