By Monsi A. Serrano
“It was a fruitful and meaningful visit from our distinguished guests”, said Pruds Garcia, President of Mekeni Food Corporation when the delegates from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan (PCCIJ) and officials of the Embassy of the Philippines-Tokyo paid a visit in the country’s most advanced and world-class meat processing plant of Mekeni Food Corporation in Balubad, Porac, Pampanga.
The contingent is led by no less than Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan Chairman Allan Reyes, and Agricultural Attaché Jose I.C. Laquian. Part of the agenda of the plant visit is to get a better and deeper perspective on how Mekeni Food Corporation embarks their best practices in the company being the first in Asia and in the country to get ISO 22000 Certification for hotdog processing, and second in the world.
Apart from that, the delegates also got an extensive understanding of how Mekeni implements its food manufacturing process and biosecurity measures
Being a home-grown brand, Mekeni brandishes its expansion to the international market and is the first and only meat processing company in the Philippines that is allowed to manufacture meat products for Japan market since the company is accredited by the Japanese government to export products to Japan
Mekeni pioneered food safety and quality in the Philippines by investing in the ISO certification program. Thus making them the first in Asia and second in the world to be certified compliant with ISO 22000 for hotdog processing in the Philippines. Apart from that, it has earned FSSC 22000 under its belt for marinated meat processing plant in the Philippines.
These milestone accreditations demonstrate that Mekeni meets the highest and globally recognized standards of the food safety management system.
PCCIJ aims to further develop and advance the relationship between the Philippines and Japan through partnerships and trade. The visit gave a glimpse of how Mekeni is at par with global organizations in terms of food safety and quality.
Speaking to THEPHILBIZNEWS, Mekeni President Pruds Garcia said, “We at Mekeni expressed our heartfelt gratitude to our delegates. Needless to say, we are truly honored to show some of the processes that we have in place. And I am sure, as we go along and when an opportunity to collaborate is there, we can further enhance our world-class standard.”
“We Filipinos can learn a lot from Japanese. As someone who has been dealing with Japanese businessmen and Japan, I admire their philosophy of “Kaizen”, which is continuous improvement. This is something we can all learn from them. They see the opportunity to improve instead of being complacent. That’s how any enterprise should embrace given the rapid transformation brought by technology, unforeseen circumstance and a lot of other factors. Japan has mastered this,” Pruds added.
“We hope that they learned from us, and we look forward to working with PCCIJ in the future as well as the Japanese government,” he said.