Dabawenyos have been used to seeing their top agriculture production making a splash in the world export market. Little do they know that Davao will become world-famous again because of this very same fruit, but this time with a twist of value added, thanks to this entrepreneur who has reinvented the banana.
Ferdie Marañon, majority shareholder and one of the founders of SAGREX Corporation, started SAGREX in 1980 with some friends on a capital of P2 million. .
It began as a trading company that bought and sold corn, rice, coffee castor beans and other agricultural products before it went into agriculture export fertilizer distribution.
Long before SAGREX, Marañon spent 14 years with the firm Procter & Gamble in various capacities—sales, marketing and merchandising. In 1965, the company assigned him to Davao City where, as fate would have it, he met the woman he would one day marry.
In time he found himself starting a sugar farm in Digos, Davao del Sur which is still operating today.
When Marañon decided to go into business, he resigned from P&G.
Going bananas
One day he became aware of the inreasing popularity of potatoes in the market, as a result no doubt of Dabawenyos’ liking for French fries, a regular fare at food chains. This led to his wanting to try to do the same with bananas which had also become to be known as the “potato of the air” because instead of growing in the ground they hang in the air. Why not banana fries? He tried to replicate the popular French fries by utilizing bananas, but it did not take off very well.
Like most successful entrepreneurs, Marañon did not give up but continued to research on what he could do with bananas. As he put it: “Napansin ko maraming nahihinog (they ripened fast in great numbers).” He placed the ripe ones in the freezer. That led to the birth of a new product that quickly caught the fancy of Dabawenyos, and eventually overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
Maranon’s discovery gave rise to a new business venture he named Golden Saba Natural Healthy Fruit. The banana variety called saba is the primary product of Golden Saba which includes whole saba banana and saba banana chunks which are microwaveable, hence exportable.
The product’s practicability made it a hit among OFWs and eventually nationals of foreign countries it was exported to, like Unites States, Canada, Australia and the Middle East.
“We export three to four container-loads every month,” Maranon said. With each container load valued about $20,000, the exported microwaveable bananas bring the company an estimated income of around $60 to $80 thousand a month, or anywhere from three to four million pesos.
Marañon said aspiring entrepreneurs should be persistent and hardworking if they want to succeed. It may be a cliché, he said, but ST or “sipag at tiyaga” still plays an important role in every successful business venture.
