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Friday, March 29, 2024

The Seafood Expert

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Head off to the buffet restaurant nearest you with all the salmon and tuna sashimi you can eat. Or, perhaps to that five-star hotel serving king crab, lobster, Chilean sea bass, halibut, and gindara. But, if you don’t feel like leaving the house, dial the delivery number of that fast food chain serving scallop and crab meat pizza.

All that bounty of the sea you can enjoy is from Mida Food Distributors, which offers the largest seafood selection in the country to over 1,000 clients ranging from casual grillers and fast food joints to premium fine-dining restaurants and high-end hotels.

“Our operation today is a testament to how the local seafood industry has evolved. The requirements of hotels and restaurants are growing and becoming more complex as the palate of Filipinos becomes more complex, too,” said Enrique Valles, Mida Food president and chief executive officer.

“We have come a long way from the parking lot of the ancestral house of my aunt Chingling (Mida Food managing director Chona Valles Tanco) in Singalong,” he added.

Seafood dishes prepared by Chef Chele Gonzalez of Vask using Mida Food products: grilled tiger prawns with strawberry gazpacho, pan-fried halibut with pork ragout and crispy iberico strips, and seafood risotto.

With a 20-year record of providing local and imported products to accommodate the diverse needs of its clients, Mida Food has become the go-to partner of most groceries and restaurants that offer seafood dishes on their menu.

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“We listen to our customers – that is how we built our reputation. We are quick to add a seafood line if necessary,” Valles said. The company, for example, had to start importing hamachi (yellowtail) after a celebrated Japanese omakase-style restaurant sought his help in ensuring a steady supply of the delicately flavored fish.

Buffet restaurants and fast food chains are Mida Food’s biggest clients in terms of volume, followed by hotel chains. As for products, Norwegian and Chilean salmon account for 30 percent of sales.

Mida Food currently has a cold storage facility in Pasig City and a processing plant in Malate. It has also partnered with two processing plants in Cebu and in Davao City.

“We are an ISO 9000-certified company. We have a quality control team that audits our plants and makes real-time inspection. We have also passed microbial content tests. If our product shows temperature abuse or discoloration, we throw them away,” Valles said.

Because of its strong position in the market, Mida Food also served as a key player in the lifting of the ban on the importation of vannamei shrimp (suahe). The ban was imposed after the shrimp industries in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, Brunei and Cambodia were hit by a virus that led to early mortality syndrome and other diseases.

“We knew that lifting the ban on the importation and culture of the shrimp would introduce further growth in the local shrimp aquaculture industry. As demand for shrimp grew, we started legislating for the lifting of the ban. We won this case in the end,” he added.

Valles, who dreams of one day having a brick-and-mortar retail store, said he is bullish that Mida Food’s business operations will continue to grow.

“We are now looking for distributors in Visayas and Mindanao. That way, we can do business with a broader market. We have a 20 percent year-on-year growth, and we are about to hit the P1 billion mark in terms of sales this year,” Valles said.

“Through research and development as well as client intimacy, we have gained a reputation in the market as a seafood expert,” he added.

(This column turns a year oldtomorrow,June 20. The author is most grateful to all who took the time to read. Happy eating, fellow explorers of food.)

For feedback, send comments to joyce.panares@gmail.com

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