Entrepreneur behind ‘Kalinga Brew’ continues to champion local farmers

Posted at 4:57 pm May 18, 2011

Tags: Coffee, Food Products

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By Anna Valmero

TABUK, KALINGA— A pack of mutit (musang or civet cats) were once considered pests by locals in this town until Antuza Refalda found out their animal droppings are valued like gold when sold to coffee shops locally and abroad.

Antuza, manager of Nor-Ref Food Products that produces Kalinga Brew products, said they used to discard beans taken from musang’s excretion thinking they are dirty and cannot be used anymore.

Around 2008, she was invited to a trade fair in Manila and a friend asked to sip a cup of “golden coffee”.

“It was called the golden coffee because it is expensive. Then, he told me these beans are collected from the droppings of the civet cat. That’s when I had the idea for the potential of the business in our community,” said Antuza, who earned the moniker Tuza ning kape for building the Kalinga civet coffee industry.

Months after her Manila visit, Tuza gathered local coffee growers to start a microbusiness and produce organic coffee and civet coffee blends made of Arabica, Excelsa and Robusta beans.

A forestry graduate from Benguet State University, Tuza admitted she practically knew nothing about coffee processing but saw the opportunity to help her local community to earn better.

When she went back to her community, she saw how dealers freeze the prices of coffee beans and farmers have no choice but to sell their beans at very cheap rates.

“It’s not unknown to us that these practices kill the livelihood of our local farmers, who practically are not earning much, if not lugi (not even breaking even). So they had no choice but to give in to the buyers, especially since the crop is seasonal and they can only sell it once a year,” Tuza said in an interview during the 2011 International Food Exhibition Philippines (IFEX).

This motivated Tuza to become an entrepreneur so she attended trainings for business startups under the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). She was able to secure a grant of P900,000 from the Department of Science and Technology under the small enterprise technology upgrading program.

Before procuring the equipment and setting up the processing plant, local coffee growers also attended training on how to wash and roast the coffee beans.

The company branded the civet and organic coffee as “Kape de Mutit” and “Kalinga Brew,” respectively. This year, Tuza introduced instant coffee made from ground beans.

During their first year of operation, they get about 50 kilos of civet coffee in a month and sold that for P20,000. By 2009, production rose to 100 kilos a month.

To respond to growing market demands, Tuza also went to nearby coffee-producing towns in the province to buy the local civet coffee for processing. From January to March of this year alone, the business sold 1.5 tons of coffee for over P1.5 million, she said.

Two-thirds of the total coffee poduction in the Cordillera are from Kalinga coffee growers and farmers, according to the Department of Agriculture.

From a small local market, Kalinga Brew expanded to markets abroad and can be found in shelves of coffee shops in Macau, China, South Korea and Taiwan. Locally, the brand can be found at Tiendesitas, SM malls and leading supermarkets.

To help other farmers to gain entrepreneural skills, Tuza established the Gawidan Farmers Association Inc., whose members attended seminars on leadership and orgnization management. The association has already secured P1 million funding from the Department of Labor and Employment and will process organic coffee, among others.

“I always tell them to dream big. Tulad nila, galing din ako sa wala (Like them, I started with nothing). But I have a dream and my hope is that one day, they will embrace the value of entrepreneurship and have a company of their own as well,” said Tuza.

During her rounds around the province when buying coffee beans from local growers, Tuza makes it a point to inform and update them about international market prices for coffee beans so they can sell their excess produce at competitive prices and not according to cheap prices by buyers.

“Other buyers in the area hated me for informing the local growers about the right prices of coffee beans but I just tell them that we have to pay what the farmers right and doing business is not about profit only,” said Tuza.

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