An entrepreneur who grew his business from a small poultry farm in the 1980s into an integrated food company is holding a Christmas party in San Fernando City where most of his 1,900 employees are expected to attend on Dec. 12.
Robert Lo, the 58-year-old chairman and president of Pampanga-based RDF Feed, Livestock & Foods Inc., is trying to gather all his employees for a grand Christmas party inside a large convention center.
“We will close our [Fresh Options Meatshop] stores for half a day for the Christmas party. We will honor five-year to 10-year employees during the event. We are holding a video making contest this year with the theme ‘I heart RDF’,” he says.
Lo employs more than 1,900 people all over Luzon who are involved in the production, processing and sale of 150 hogs and 12,000 chicken each day. A veterinarian and a former professor at UP Los Baños, Lo is a strong believer in education and training.
He sends employees for technical trainings in the United States, South Korea and the Netherlands, supports the pursuit of master’s degree by his young managers at Ateneo de Manila University or De La Salle University and taps University of Makati to provide college education to about 30 supervisors who have no bachelor’s degree yet.
“Once in a while, we also go out to look at the trends in Singapore, Japan and other Asian markets,” he says, referring to his marketing professionals.
“We are very active in our RDF University [in partnership with University of Makati]. We have a lot of trainings to improve their skills. We encourage our people to get further studies,” Lo says in an interview in Makati City.
Aside from more than 1,000 farm and retail workers, RDF employs over 400 professionals including engineers, veterinarians, food technologists and technical experts who comprise the research and development team. The company has a seven-hectare facility on an industrial site in Porac near the boundary of Angeles City.
“With the growth of the company, the jobs of our people have become specialized. For example, one of our veterinarians is very interested in the tunnel ventilation poultry system and wants to study wind flow and the use of infrared cameras to monitor heat. We are sending him to Georgia [US],” says Lo, who established RDF in 1988. The company is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2018.
“There are a lot of supervisors who are not college graduates but they are very adept. We now have a program with University of Makati for degree equivalency. About 30 plus of our supervisors are attending classes in our company every Saturday and Sunday, for up to 15 months, after which they will have a BA degree,” says Lo, who graduated with a degree in Veterinary Medicine from UP Diliman in 1983 and a Master in Entrepreneurship from the Asian Institute of Management in Makati City in 2003.
Lo also supports a scholarship program for veterinary students.
On why he puts emphasis on education, Lo says this will enable more employees to take up leadership positions in the company in the future. “We want them to be innovative. We have a hard time getting outsiders who are shocked by our company culture which is said to be paternalistic in approach,” says Lo.
Employees describe the company culture in RDF as close-knit and family-like.
RDF, short for Red Dragon Farms, is a world-class meat company that is considered among the largest taxpayers in the city of San Fernando and the towns of Porac and Magalang in Pampanga. It is the company behind Fresh Options Meatshop. It also distributes processed meat products and Filipino meals and operates several restaurants at the same time. An innovator, RDF introduced the first food vending machine at SM Clark this year.
Fresh Options stores carries pork, chicken and meat products that were bred, raised, dressed, processed and delivered in-house. The stores also sell beef, marinated meat and ready-to-cook food. RDF’s restaurant unit, Robbie’s Gourmet Deli, supplies pre-cooked and cooked food.
Lo, who controls more than 80 percent of RDF, says the company is set to open a P400-million automated slaughterhouse in Porac, with equipment imported from Germany, by March 2018 to upgrade the meat sector in the Philippines.
“In the fresh meat sector, I think we are globally competitive,” Lo says. He says RDF employs uninterrupted cold chain standards from farms to slaughterhouse to meat shops and observes proper segregation of pork, chicken and beef.
“Weekly, we have quality assurance people who go to our stores to observe quality standards. We make sure the temperature of the meat does not exceed 5 degrees,” he says. “We are also strictly observing a shelf-life for our products.”
Lo says despite the strict standards, the company minimizes wastage to less than 0.5 percent of total sales. “We are able to forecast the requirements of each store,” he says.
Fresh meat accounts for 85 percent to 89 percent of RDF’s total sales, but the company is also growing its processed food segment.
Lo is expanding the business further, with the launching of rotisserie chicken and roast pig delivery in Pampanga. “We will open at once eight branches in Angeles City,” he says, referring to the new grilled chicken chain, which will offer bigger sizes than those sold by established competitors.
“We would like this to be known as the biggest chicken in town,” he says. “Our next target is maybe eight stores in Parañaque area.”
He will also bring Cebu-style or Aparri-style lechon to Luzon early next year.
Lo, who grew up in Binondo, Manila, is a believer in ‘blue ocean’ strategy. “You should go to where there is untapped market. We don’t want to compete head-on with established companies. We are creating a new product, a new market,” he says.
Lo is optimistic that despite the ‘bird flu’ scare which dampened demand for poultry products early this year, the business will continue to flourish in the coming years, as the company introduces more products. “We have a contingency plan, if that thing happens again,” he says.
He says for the Christmas season, Fresh Options offers a wide variety of products, including hams and ‘Paskong Pinoy’ items such as chicken, beef morcon, bagnet and crispy pata. “These are available at all Fresh Option stores,” he says.
Fresh Options operates 87 full stores and more than 80 express outlets that are all company-owned. These stores are located in Central Luzon, Metro Manila and Calabarzon. Lo says the plan is to penetrate other provinces in Luzon, including Cagayan and Isabela.
Lo does not consider franchising as a means of expansion at the moment, saying the company does not want to compromise quality. “We don’t use processed meats. Even our nuggets and tocino are all fresh meats,” he says.
He says an initial public offering is not yet on his mind. “At present, I can easily decide. With the IPO, the decision process will be longer because of the many consultations involved,” he says.
To professionalize the company, Lo formed a board of directors, which includes top executives and members of his family. Lo’s Binondo-based family owns a company that runs Ketch department stores in Manila and Quezon City.
He says the company is still on investment and expansion mode, so the annual earnings are rolled over to support the growth of the business.
“We are looking at regional expansion. We are looking at Isabela and Cagayan. We are exploring,” he says. RDF is also looking at the OFW market in Asian countries, he says.
Lo says he values the contribution of his employees to the success of the company. “Be careful with your people. Consider their needs to improve themselves. That is why we offer a lot of trainings. We encourage them to study,” he says.