Country’s Spanish flavour stays in the cheese

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 29

Country’s Spanish flavour stays in the cheese

N’ZPA Manila An enduring Spanish influence has infiltrated the marketing of New Zealand cheese in the Philippines. Prominent in traditional Christmas hampers this year will be the increasingly popular Queso de Bola made and marketed by the Philippine Dairy Products Corporation, a joint-venture company in which the NewZealand Dairy Board has a 30 per cent stake. The Queso de Bola — Spanish for ball of cheese — is simply a ball of processed cheese dipped in bright red wax and neatly packaged in cellophane. According to the corporation’s general manager. Mr Mario Nery. it has proved so successful that plans are in hand to produce a similar product using a processed type of Edam cheese which will be marketed under the Dairy Board's Anchor brandname. Nearly four centuries as a Spanish colony has left its mark in many ways on the Philippines. The United States took over after the SpanishAmerican war, and English ! has since emerged as the I main common language, but I the predominance of the

Catholic religion, vestiges of architecture, and the names of people and places all bear testimony to the Spanish past. The country's best known and perhaps most successful company is the San Miguel Corporation, where it was only recently that Spanish ceased to be the language used at board meetings. San Miguel, through its Magnolia division, is the dairy board’s partner in the Philippine Dairy Products Corporation. The Magnolia division is heavily into dairy products. It is the country’s main manufacturer of ice cream, butter and cheese. It is the biggest single producer of fresh milk and through another joint venture with Nestle is heavily involved in the sale of milk powders and flavoured milk drinks. The joint venture with the New Zealand Dairy Board was formed just over a year ago and is concerned only with butter, cheese and margarine. Mr Nery said, however, that there had been a close, but informal relationship stretching back 16 or 18 years, during which time the Magnolia division, of which he is also general manager, had developed Anchor into

the Philippines' top brand of butter. But while the Spanish and American influence has apparently given the Filipino population a taste for milk, people are taking longer to turn to butter and cheese. "The only reason consumption of butter is low is because this is a rice-eating country and not much butter is used in cooking rice. Butter is used mainly as a spread on bread or toast," he said. There were also problems with refrigeration which were not helped by frequent power cuts, or "brown-outs" as they are quaintly called. A non-dairy butter substitute which did not need refrigeration and was sold under the misleading name of Dari-Creme provided strong competition, selling at least twice as well as the Anchor brand butter. Mr Nery said that the Philippine Dairy Products Corporation’s share of the larger margarine market was very small. “We hope to increase our share, and if we do not will think of withdrawing." Dairy products are big business for New Zealand in the Philippines — and not all is channelled through Philippine dairy products. The

Dairy Board has arrangements with at least two other importers, one of them a big distributor of milk powder under the Anchor name. In the year ended June. 1982, New Zealand sold JNZ67.7 million worth of dairy products to the Philippines, up SNZI3 million or 23.8 per cent on the previous year. Dairy products comprised 68.5 per cent of all New Zealand exports to the Philippines. The Dairy Board expects the Philippines, in common with most Asian countries, to provide a growing market, particularly among younger people, as the economy of the country improves. Mr Nery described growth at present as moderate. He said that in Manila in particular eating habits were influenced by Western trends. The Magnolia division now had more than 100 ice cream shops in Manila. "The Filipino loves to eat ice cream. In the past it has been regarded as something for very special occasions, we can translate that into a situation where ice cream becomes an everyday dessert, then we are really in business."