Have you ever noticed that the chickens we eat nowadays often give you an allergic sting one way or another. The company -Health Options is diversifying into the organic food sector to meet this crucial need for healthier food. My other blog also reiterates the same principles that this article is saying. Pinoy Business Coach realizes the potential of your dreams and aspirations to be a source of a worthwhile business.
By: Ma Stella F. Arnaldo
HEALTHY Options Inc., reputedly the leading chain of premier health-food stores in the country, is projecting a 20-percent increase in its retail sales this year, boosted by its new organic-produce line.
By: Ma Stella F. Arnaldo
HEALTHY Options Inc., reputedly the leading chain of premier health-food stores in the country, is projecting a 20-percent increase in its retail sales this year, boosted by its new organic-produce line.
For the new line, the
company invested an initial P3 million in a 5-hectare organic farm in
Majayjay, Laguna, in 2012, said Romy Sia, managing director of Healthy
Options.
“It’s a partnership
with the Costales Nature Farms. We built chicken coops, put in money to
buy more breeds, to buy more pigs and set up a hygienic vegetable
processing plant,” Sia told the BusinessMirror. The plant, he said, was
“especially critical” to assure Healthy Options’s clients that they
would be buying only the freshest and cleanest produce.
The new line of
organic vegetables, culinary herbs, pork, chicken and eggs will be sold
under the brand “Organika” in all 18 stores of Healthy Options, most of
which are found in leading malls nationwide.
Organika was formally
launched last week with a fashion show at E’s bar at the Edsa Shangri-La
Manila. “By launching these products from our very own farm, we renew
our commitment to giving our customers better choices for a better life.
It is also a show of support to small organic farmers, and to healthy,
humane and sustainable farming,” according to Sia.
Via
text message, he said that Healthy Options “hopes to grow by 20 percent
in sales this year, especially with the contribution of the Organika
line.” In 2012, Sia added, sales grew by 11 percent. The company’s biggest sellers are its multivitamins, food and herbal supplements and natural hair dyes.
At the sidelines of
Organika’s press launch, Ronaldo Costales, vice president and chief
operating officer of Costales Nature Farms, said the property produces
monthly 8 to 10 tons of organic vegetables such as lettuce, culinary
herbs, cabbage, French beans and cherry tomatoes.
The farm also has 50 head of pigs and 2,000 to 2,500 heads of chicken “at any given time, just to supply Healthy Options.”
Six months after they
are born, the hogs are brought to a double A slaughterhouse in Sariaya,
Quezon, which ensures the sanitary conditions under which the animals
are prepared.
Founded in 2005,
Costales Nature Farms has been supplying organic vegetables and culinary
herbs to restaurants and hotels in Metro Manila. But its hogs and
chickens will be exclusively sold to Healthy Options, Costales said.
Meanwhile, Sia said he
decided to go into organic products after witnessing the heartless way
hogs were transported from the farms to slaughterhouses often in cramped
jeepneys or trucks. “They’re
not treated well. Just because we eat pigs doesn’t mean we should
mistreat them. I cannot have in good conscience to sit down and eat pork
adobo or lechon knowing how much the pig has suffered.”
He noted that in the
UK where he also keeps a home, hogs are raised differently. There, Sia
said, “they focus a lot on the welfare of the animals.” Organic farming,
he added, believes in the same kind of techniques in raising farm
animals.
Most industrial farms
use synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified crops,
while steroids, growth hormones, sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics
and synthetic trace supplements are usually injected into farm animals.
While organic products
are often priced higher than ordinarily grown produce and farm-bred
animals, Sia underscored the health benefits of eating such products.
“We want cheap food yet all these chickens, for instance, are injected
with growth hormones for them to grow bigger and fatter.”
Most commercial farms
also practice mono-cropping, which leads to higher pest attacks, use
additives to hasten production and cram poultry and livestock in very
tight, unsanitary spaces that expose them to stress and diseases.
Since the company’s
soft launch of Organika in September, Sia said, the response has been
overwhelming. Healthy Options’s customers are often affluent, coming
from the A-B classes who can afford the higher price points of organic
produce.
Aside from offering
superior meat and vegetable produce, Healthy Options’s farm does not
cause excessive waste or pollution, resulting in a healthier ecosystem.
“We will deliver
products that have the Healthy Options guarantee of freshness and
quality, just as we have been doing for more than a decade,” Sia said.
With his partner and
childhood friend Christian Tan, he founded Healthy Options in 1995, as
an offshoot of Sia trying to find relief for his son’s food allergies.
Sia and Tan have since branched out to a natural pet-food and
accessories store called Bow & Wow and a premier wine shop, Wine
Story.
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