Consumer satisfaction, certified

How do you satisfy consumers in a highly discriminating industry such as food?

Just ensure safety and quality, which also includes taste, at all times from the sourcing of raw materials to testing, processing, packaging and transport until it reaches consumers’ dining table.

And this is what Mekeni Food Corporation assures consumers through its popular line of Mekeni products—ham, bacon, corned beef, their top-quality cured meat products such as tapa, tocino, longganisa, and of course its flagship brand, the Mekeni Picnic Hotdog. This particular product is slowly gaining ground in terms of awareness and preference among households today because of its taste that is already comparable to premium-priced brands in the market.

For the safety aspect, Mekeni Food Corporation made sure that its food manufacturing processes adhere to the strictest and most stringent standards acceptable around the world when it comes to food processing. Food safety programs such as Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) are already in place for Mekeni to gain acceptance among local consumers.

Mekeni Food Corporation is also doubly proud of these standards because it shows that the company is doubly serious in its efforts to make safety a top priority and part of the mindset of the company’s production team at their 20-plus hectare meat processing plant in Balubad, Porac, Pampanga. This same plant is accredited by the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) and boasts of a “AAA” rating conferred by the same agency.

And in a project of the NMIS together with other partner-agencies when it comes to choosing the best among AAA-grade meat processing plants in the country in terms of food safety, Mekeni showed them all how to make safety part of their manufacturing veins when it won as “Best Meat Processing Plant” in not just one but three years straight years, from 2004 to 2006. For this reason, Mekeni Food Corporation was bestowed with a “Grand Slam Award” back in 2007.

But Mekeni Food Corporation is still adamant in pushing their safety processing benchmark to even greater heights not just in the local scene but international as well. In 2006, after Mekeni Food Corporation won its third straight “Best Meat Processing Plant” award, the company even made history and made the country proud by becoming the first meat processing plant  in the Philippines, the first in asia  and  the 2^nd in the world to be presented with the prestigious ISO 22000 or Food Safety Management System certification.  The award cited Mekeni Food Corporation for its continued investments in modernizing its processing equipment and thorough and meticulous research and development efforts to make their products truly world class and safe.

And Mekeni Food Corporation pushed the envelope even further when 6 years after that groundbreaking award, the company was awarded as the first Food Safety System Certification (FSSC) 22000-certified hotdog processing plant in the country. This is no easy feat to achieve, especially for a company that started only as a backyard business. The FSSC requires that a company’s food safety standards should conform to the rigorous demands of global retailers or major branded food companies regarding food safety management in order for their product to gain entry into a specific market.

“Safety and quality is at the lifeblood of Mekeni Food Corporation, from the management down to the employees. Our consumers are our priority for the business so we make sure that safety and quality is always observed so as not to lose their trust and confidence, which is vital for us to survive. We thank God for giving us the wisdom and the courage to always be on our toes so that we can continue to give Filipinos safe and high-quality world-class products,” Prudencio “Pruds” Garcia, President of Mekeni Food Corporation, emphasizes.

The world-class quality Mekeni food products are available at all major groceries and supermarkets nationwide. To know more about Mekeni Food Corporation, contact (+63) 45-458-0000 or visit www.mekeni.com.