AVANT GARDENER
What’s mundane to one person can be special to another. And once one realizes that, it can become the basis of a profitable business.
That’s exactly what happened with Basilio’s Kiniing Food Processing, a Benguet-based small business that processes at least one ton of meat a month and ships to different parts of the Philippines.
Kiniig is smoked meat specifically from the Kankanaey tribe.
Proprietor and ATI Young Farmer Award winner Sherly Biase started the business as a side hustle when she was 23 years old as a jump-off point from her father’s hobby from the early 2000s.
Biase’s father, a vegetable dealer-turned restaurateur, used to make and sell kiniig, but didn’t take into consideration things like profit computation and labor costs.
One of 10 siblings, Biase knows what it’s like to have to do without, and this is a driving force behind her pursuit of entrepreneurial excellence.
It took her father years to perfect his kiniig recipe, relying not on measurement, but on instinct.
She started helping her father make kiniig when she was nine, starting with simple tasks like salting the meat, until she learned how to process it on her own.
Her business started by accident: she posted a picture of her father’s kiniig and received numerous inquiries on where it could be purchased. “I was surprised because I thought this was a common product. Why were so many people eager to buy it?” she said in Tagalog.
She acted on the opportunity at once, taking and fulfilling orders and most importantly, keeping track of expenses and profit, until her father noticed that she was processing and selling more than him. She asked if he wanted to join forces and he agreed.
Two days after the business was formally registered in 2020, the government declared the nationwide lockdown. “You’ll really cry,” Biase, who was 26 then, said.
Little did she know that it would be her kiniig business that would get her family through the pandemic, but not without its own share of challenges. ASF was rampant and she also had to find a supplier that could produce the quality of pork she needed. For example, many backyard farmers feed their pigs scraps, which affects the quality of pork. “Many older farmers don’t want to accept [new techniques, saying] ‘it’s always been done this way,’” she said. “[It would be nice] if [older farmers] had someone young to explain [new concepts] to them.”
They had to stop producing for six months, but said “people kept asking about us in those six months, so I said there really is [a market].”
Encouraged, she found reliable suppliers and began standardizing production, joining the DTI Young Entrepreneur Program to up her game. What she thought was a seminar turned out to be a competition. Unprepared, she lost, but the experience lit a fire within her. She began joining seminars and mentorship programs where she learned skills like pitching, presenting, and completing paperwork.
That’s why when she heard about the Young Farmers Challenge, she was ready.
She ended up winning the Provincial Level of the DA’s Young Farmers Challenge and the Intermediate Level of ATI’s Kapital Access for Young Agripreneurs (KAYA) Program, both in 2022.This opened the door to more opportunities, which has allowed Biase to expand operations. She started getting invited to events around the country, and she took the opportunity to introduce her products to new markets.
Biase always makes sure to focus on one thing: quality consistency. She uses a certain type of pork that she isn’t willing to disclose for professional reasons. The meat is smoked with alder wood, which grows abundantly in their area and imparts a sweet, nutty flavor.
Her products can be bought wholesale or retail through resellers or directly through Ag Kiing - Basilio's Cordilleran Smoked Meat on Facebook and Cordilleran Delicacies on Shoppee, and Lazada, which also offers products like kiniig chili paste, etag, tapuy jam.
In an industry that young people hesitate to enter because of the perception that it’s a surefire way to end up in poverty, Biase’s success and tenacity stands out.
“[Folks] think that you won’t earn in farming. You’ll earn, but you have to study… and you have to innovate. If you have zero knowledge… you can always go to the [government] departments that really support startups [and attend] training and seminars.”
When asked what she loved most about being an agripreneur, Biase said, “When you start a business, [the first thing you think about is] income, but now, for me, if you love what you’re doing, if you’re doing it right, and if you manage to instill your core values into your product or business, money will follow. You need to have clear values before you start.”