King Sue preserves heritage while embracing innovation
When Cu Un Kay, an immigrant from Fookien, China, began his ham and sausage business in 1930 in what is now known as Caloocan City, he started with a single adobe stove.
He had 20 employees back then – a workforce that was sometimes augmented by Cu himself, his wife, and their 10 children, especially when there was an unexpected surge in orders.
Ninety-three years later, the adobe stove has since been preserved in the site where Cu’s small enterprise started and the number of workers has grown to at least 600. Cu’s grandchild, Richie Brian King, is also now the company’s operations manager.
“All of us kids have stayed in the ancestral house that was right beside the factory. So, at one point or another, we all helped at the factor. I was the cashier after school work. I also helped prepare hotdogs,” he said in an interview during a live cooking demonstration of Chef Gene Gonzalez using King Sue meat and deli products at Café Ysabel in San Juan.
“Our company’s story is really one of resilience, tradition, and innovation,” added the 39-year-old King.
King Sue’s meat suppliers, for example, have been their partners for over half a century now.
“The people I talk to now are also the children or grandchildren of the people my lolo talked to,” he said.
And in full-circle fashion, King’s own six-year-old daughter knows her way around the factory, and has taken a liking to preparing chicken nuggets.
“I was surprised – once she worked non-stop for about two hours. She was fascinated with chicken nuggets,” he said.
“I paid her the daily minimum wage that day, but my wife said mahal (expensive) for two hours work,” King happily recalled as he and members of the media sampled Chef Gene’s version of banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) and menudo Sulipeña (oxtail stew) using King Sue’s ham and other deli products.
The recipe of King Sue’s Chinese ham, despite the acquisition of modern machines to make the production more efficient, has remained the same almost a century since King’s grandfather first prepared it.
“Lolo’s recipe is what we follow to this day… We hold our rich history to high esteem even as we find ourselves brimming with excitement as we peer into the future,” he said.
For King, the direction is to focus on restaurants, hotels, catering businesses, and pizza houses – markets which he said are best suited for King Sue’s newer products such as pepperoni, salami, Hungarian sausage, and bacon, among others.
“The supermarket segment is where we grew. But we are in a transition phase now. The restaurant and hotel market – that is where the growth potential is,” he said.
Moving forward, King said the company will also invest more in marketing, with the younger generation of executives recognizing the need to prop up their brand on traditional and social media.
This might just solve their happy problem of people patronizing their products over the years, but still mispronouncing the brand’s name.
“It’s King Sue, pronounced King Su-weh. King is from our surname, and su-weh is a Fookien word which means small. It was a term of endearment for our grandfather – small king,” he said.
Despite the many other competitors in the market now, King remains bullish. After all, not many can claim almost a hundred years of market presence – creating happy memories among countless families that have enjoyed their products.
“Our products are consistent and delicious, and we have 93 years of tradition, quality and heritage to back us up,” he said.