Sagada’s Gabay Wines wins Cordi regional awards

Mother Sofia Kollin Kilongan and daughter, Stephanie Kilongan Robles management team keeps Gabay Wines and Fruit Preserves going. 

(2nd of 2 parts)

by Gina Dizon

Sofia found cooking and making wines a therapy as she mourned the death of her husband as she persisted on with the business. 
    Stephanie’s husband Keithley Robles  along with her older brother Dennis took on delivery of goods to customers.
    Keithley too, silkscreened T-shirts and these displayed among other goods in demand by tourists who dropped by at the display center.
Now in high school 15-year-old Sky, Stephanie’s oldest daughter bakes cakes and cookies as added products to Gabay.
     With a strong family team, Gabay was given the Bronze Bagwis Excellence for Consumers Award  by the DTI- Mountain Province in 2019.
     Business was good with production nearly a 100% bought by tourists who recorded nearly 190,000 arrivals in town in 2019 before tourism closed due to the covid pandemic in March 2020.
     With the declaration of a national emergency March 2020 due the coronavirus pandemic, a number of restaurants, cafes, inns and homestays and souvenir shops closed till now.
     Products got stuck and perishables have to be consumed or given to friends and relatives before the products get fully destroyed.
     A few shops continued on their business- Gabay Wines, Masferre’s Deli Shop, Strawberry Café, Pitik Wines and Lemon Pies persisted.  Products are delivered to Baguio and Manila dependent on orders. 
    Some establishments went into cooking and selling of all sorts and most in the tourism business especially tourist guides went into gardening and construction work.  Weaving flopped with the stoppage of a number of weavers who don’t have any more thread to weave. Though a few persisted to weave and stocked their products. 
    Gabay Wines and Fruit Preserves is one exceptional family business that persisted with diversified goods and innovative marketing.
    DTI’s financial support came in via Small Business Corporation’s  Covid 19 Assistance to Restart Enterprises (CARES) Program  With SBC-CARES’ aid, Gabay was granted a P300,000 loan. With the financial aid, Sofia and Stephanie bought raw materials most especially and these cooked into jams and jellies and made into wines. 
    From home production went through marketing via online and orders delivered.
    Selling products from Sagada is the challenge as any jam or jelly or wine can be bought online or anywhere.
    So it was proven that visitors are the ones who buy most of the products when they visit the town. Where they are not there anymore, the product reaches their doorsteps via marketing online and delivery.
    Though volume produced went half the usual production, so too with profit as compared when tourists were physically present in town, Stephanie said.
    Livelihood and the enterprise went on.
     Lemons and oranges are sourced from nearby places and made into jams, jellies and wines. This so, as some of the local produce are sold fresh and unprocessed.
    The pandemic saw the oversupply of citrus in nearby Barlig which produced plentiful of Meyer and sea grass lemons made into lemon and orange curds.
    Blueberries are sourced from the mountains of nearby Mainit, Bontoc and these made into blueberry jams. Gone are the many ‘alumani’ (blueberry) bushes in the forests of Sagada where some have been uprooted and planted in domestic lots while some species had been burned in the mountains.
    Bugnay too is sourced from warmer places as it has a much better wine taste than what is locally grown in cool weather.
    With the demand for red and black rice, sacks of these were bought from nearby Bauko and repacked and the exotic variety sealed in pouches. This also signals a challenge to plant more of these variety in town.  
    Through experimentation and creativity, Gabay improved its jams and jellies with the making of lemon guava jams, orange pineapple marmalades, cherry jams, mixed berry preserves, orange curds and bluerry strawberry jams.
    Guava and bugnay vinegar was produced.
    Unsold Arabica coffee due the pandemic was fermented into coffee wine.
    The traditional ‘etag’ or smoked meat was produced from healthy swine raised in Sagada. 
    "Marketing online is a challenge" said Stephanie.
    Delivery fees cost high but Stephanie has to maintain the regular market price. A bottle of jam preserve sells at a regular price of 200.00. Adding more than that will cost much higher from what Shoppee promotes at P200 per bottle of jam.
    With the advice of DTI, Gabay included the delivery fee the customer pays on top of the cost of the jam. “And that is, if the arrangement is okay with the customer”, Stephanie said.
    Online marketing through Shoppee is done with and J &T delivery. Shoppee then remits the cost of the product to Gabay.
    Where the usual way is to wait for tourists to buy products, it’s a different way in the new normal.
    Going virtual or online selling was and is a feat.
    Virtual trade fairs were facilitated by DTI with Hybrid National food fair, Impakabsat trade fair, PLDT virtual trade fair to help micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) market their products.
    Coffee Lovers Philippines and Pasa Love by the DTI featured Cordillera products via You Tube.
    Actual sale deliveries were done still with the aid of social media especially Facebook by the recipient organizations.
    Actual sales were done with Manila-based Sustainable Sagada, Sagada Harvest and Rural Rising Philippines who received  items delivered by private vans.
    With the help of the Office of the Municipal Agriculturist (OMAG) products were received for delivery to Manila at discounted P7.00 per kg while private vans charged P10.00 per kilo.
    Resellers are given at discounted rates for one, P160.00 per bottle of  blueberry jam and for them to sell at the same regular rate of P200.00 each.
    Sagada entrepreneurs too moved goods via online and actual sales.
    Apart from Sagada Harvest managed by Sagada resident based in Manila Christian Lizardo, is Manila-based     Taste of Sagada that markets Gabay products online. Taste of Sagada receives products from Sagada via vans operated by Sagada operators.  And so too with  a kailyan, Agetyeng Tours based in Baguio City who market Gabay products online.
Too, GL Trans terminal operated by a Baguio-based townmate is utilized as a dropping center where deliveries are sent and received by buyers.
    Products too are sold at the Pasalubong Center at the capital town of  Bontoc, Mountain Province apart from the main  display center at Poblacion Sagada.
    Meantime, trainings are done with DA and DTI on good agricultural practices on cacao and basics of cacao farming, good agricultural practices and basics of coffee farming,methods of tasting and appreciating coffee, technics in brewing, grading, and identifying tastes of Arabica coffee.
    A business improvement plan was formulated in 2019 due Kapatid Mentor Me Program under DTI’s Go Negosyo program.     A business continuity plan followed through with DTI.
    Gabay went into training in making fruit wines and vinegar to improve the quality in terms of clarity, alcohol volume, color, aroma and flavor.
    What makes Gabay Wines and Fruit Preserves  quite different from other others is an open secret. Apart from the passionate and persevering attitude infused in the making of products is that products come from Sagada.
    Sagada with a cool climate most of the time grows Arabica coffee exceptionally well.
    Citrus and guava grow well along with blueberries in the town.