Fish Processors

After seeing the products themselves in the market, I was taken to visit to fish processing businesses. The first was the Liberty Fishermen Multi-Purpose Co-operative and processing center. This group has been in business for 20 years and has a number of boats and member fisherman. There are also five women (the wives of fishermen) who work at the processing center, processing the fish into everything from sausages to steaks, shrimp paste, fish sauce, as well as dried, and semi-dried fish (Lamayo). Their office is in an area that looks a bit like a squatter's village, with narrow alleyways, and small residences tucked away in corners. Still, they now own the buildings they operate out of, and employ quite a few people. They sell to all sorts of businesses both locally and in other parts of the Philippines. Their packages were more professional than many of the smaller sellers, and included a properly printed label for each product, plus plastic bags for freezing with a motif of marine animals on the outside. Their only real packaging issue was the lack of consistency seen in their labels. Each one was markedly different from the others, so that you would have to be familiar with the brand to know they were produced by the same company.

Next, we visited Jaytee Marine Products Trading, where a husband and wife team, with the help of a few employees processed fish products in their home. They owned four boats with a team of four fishermen per boat, and have been in business for about 3 years. They are recipients of investment and marketing help from the OTOP program and proudly display an OTOP banner outside their home business. They have taken part in trade exhibitions in Manila and had attended the branding seminars that the city had put on previously. They also shipped some of their product to Manila, and all of this under their own entrepreneurial steam. If people like this can grow small businesses, why not other small developers. Their packages were designed in house, and as expected, they included a confusing assortment of gradients and word art overtop of blurry close-up product shots. Difficult to read, and similar to many other similar products, but I was impressed at simply how much they took on themselves. People like this are to be admired. This is clearly one area that hopefully we can help out with is bringing some education and resources to people like this to help them clarify their products and make them communicate clearly and effectively. The previous branding and packaging seminar that was held here in the spring focussed not on design, but rather santitation and packaging material requirements, as well as what information needs to legally be printed on packages. (see more photos)