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Corazon Dayro Ong (CDO) knew that sooner or later her resolve to make what started out as backyard meat processing project would succeed. She was never in a hurry. No missteps, as it now turns out.

What she did not anticipate – and nobody really does – is that a fire would leave the operation into ashes in 1987. At that time, CDO was producing and selling 5,000 kilos of longganiza and tocino with hot dogs thrown in and making good.

Mrs. Ong now says the only "luck" she had in that fire was that her dozen or so people were able to save the equipment on the 500 square meter lot where her family also had a home.

By that time, the CDO brand of refrigerated meat products already had its first factory outlet in the Farmers Market in Cubao, Quezon City. Demand was rising. The fire should not suspend production for long. Otherwise, Mrs. Ong thought, what she built with her sweat would disappear with the fire.

So determined was she that in exactly two days, she was back in the market with the CDO meat products. She made do with what the fire left, principally the not-to-modern equipment.

Like the phoenix

Like the phoenix, she rose from the ashes. In just two days she or her products were back in the market.

The success saw the need to transfer operation to a 2.500 square meter lot in Barrio Calumay in Valenzuela City. Production swelled to 35,000 kilos of processed meat daily.

Today, after almost 35 years, the CDO, which started as a single proprietorship, is an accepted, competitive brand of processed meat with a P300 million plant in Malvar, Batangas. More than half of the investment – P180 million – represented equity. Mrs. Ong made sure that the money the operation earned was kept whole in preparation for slow expansion until a giant P300 million plant became too attractive to resist.

CDO was converted into a family corporation in 1981. CDO is now a brand owned by FoodSphere, a company controlled by the family of Mrs. Ong.

She has not withdrawn from the operation but she and her three children immediately saw the wisdom of hiring professionals. Mrs. Ong is at the top of management, being chairperson.

The operation is practically directed by her eldest son, Jerome, an economics graduate from the University of the Philippines. He is corporate vice president. His younger brother Jason heads research, probably taking some instructions from their mother who has a degree in nutrition from the Far Eastern University.

Dermatologist in finance

The only sister in the brood of three is Sharmaine, a licensed physician who trained in dermatology. She did not take to medical practice. She saw how her mother and two brothers were helping make the business grow. She decided to join in. As it turned out, she is better at finance than in removing warts and making pretty faces as a dermatologist.

Still the family is smart enough to recognize the need of professionals. They hired some.

The story of CDO is long but not sad. Mrs. Ong started selling tocino and longganiza (native sausage) in 1975 to neighbors and friends. She had classmates working as nutritionists in some hospitals. She took to them. She was first refused. But persistence was her virtue. She finally convinced them that as nutritionist she can make products that suit the palate of hospital patients and the rest of the consumers without threatening their health.

Organic spices

With the help of her son Jason who heads research CDO discovered organic spices and ingredients that enhance the taste of the processed meat products. Mrs. Ong’s firm policy is never ever use monosodium glutamate (vetsin). She knows the harm it can do to her consumers

By 1977, CDO was into ham and bacon after discovering that its hot dogs were competing with the giants.

In an exclusive interview with Malaya Business Insight, Jerome Ong, corporate vice president, explained that her mother had modest profit goals. By that, he explained, Corazon Dayro Ong did not want to plunge the family into heavy debts to expand operation.

But there came a time when borrowing became absolutely necessary even as CDO had in its banks some profits.

The first loan of P10,000 was obtained from Caloocan Rural Bank. CDO also found it necessary to seek the financial help of the Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Scale Industries.

It also got some financial help from the National Cottage Industries Development Authority in 1975.

With the borrowed money plus a P300,000 loan from then PCIBank (now Banco de Oro), CDO set up a more modern factory in its second site in Calumay, Valenzuela. By the time the plant was inaugurated in 1990, it was producing 35,000 kilos of processed meat daily. That’s a seven-fold increase from the 5,000-kilo daily output in its first plant in Marulas which went up in smoke.

By 1997, FoodSphere was producing 100 tons of hot dogs a day. Its market has expanded to everywhere in the country. Distributors have increased to a number Jerome Ong cannot exactly remember at the moment.

25 percent market share

Among 100 players in the processed meat market, only 10 to 15 of whom may be classified as big-scale, FoodSphere, never dropping the CDO (Corazon Dayro Ong) brand, accounts for an estimated 25 per cent share of the processed food business.

Deeply Catholic in religion, the family of Corazon Dayro Ong is proof that the family that "prays together stays together." It is not exactly praying but the three children of Mrs. Ong make sure that whenever possible they dine together. Sunday lunch is never missed.

With her three children proving their capabilities in their respective positions, plus Mrs. Ong’s husband who resigned from a teaching job in zoology and biology in the Ateneo when the company was struggling but succeeding, the family saw the need of banding together to pursue what had already been proven a success.

For all her tenacity and perseverance in making a backyard business grow with her husband and three children, Mrs. Corazon Dayro Ong was chosen as the 2009 "Woman Entrepreneur of the Year" by Ernest and Young, one of the largest audit-management companies in the US based in Manhattan, New York City.

Incidentally, the Entrepreneur of the Year award went to Jesus Tambunting who parlayed a small-rural bank the family bought in Bulacan into the country’s largest private development bank.

Fighting a monopoly

The Ongs noticed that Century Tuna was practically a monopoly having a 99 percent share of the market. Canned tuna, according to Jerome, is a P5 billion annual business.

They dared put up a tuna canning operation. They came up with a new product, corned tuna.

Jerome feels that they are being harassed everywhere. Suppliers of tin, he said, have been told to deny FoodSphere the raw material. But they find ways of continuing the operation.

Jerome admits the family company wants to make more profits. "That can be accomplished by giving the consumers healthy competition," he said. It turns out it is not healthy at all.

But they won’t give up.

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