RIYADH, 26 May 2005 — If you’re a genuine food lover, don’t fail to visit the Saudi Food show at the Riyadh Exhibition Center before it closes today.

And if you’re a Filipino food lover or dealer, visit Stand No. 101. For in this particular stand is a host of Philippine products brought in by exporters participating in the 5-day Saudi Food, which opened Sunday.

The Philippine delegation is represented by seven companies offering various produce “drawn from the archipelago’s boundless harvest of fresh fruits, choice ingredients, and marine products,” such as fruit juices, cereals and noodles, and condiments.

In their attempt to “penetrate” the mainstream Saudi market, the Pinoy exporters are eyeing the Filipino migrant workers in the Kingdom numbering nearly a million.

“As long as Filipinos are here, there is a good future for Philippine products in the kingdom,” said Ric Blanca, export manager of Florence Food Corporation. He was also part of the delegation that visited the Kingdom in a food selling mission in October last year.

His company joined the exhibition to market preserved fruits in bottles, fermented fish product, noodles, seasoning, condiments, powdered coconut milk, pastry wrapper and other marine products like the vacuum-packed dried fish.

Fake Products

The ban on the importation of fresh and frozen marine products from the Philippines was lifted in May last year by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The directive was faxed to Arab News by Attaché Yusuf Usudan of the economic section of the Philippine Embassy, who also attended the first day of the exhibition.

Fish sauces and coconut juices, to name a few, that are being sold in supermarkets patronized by OFWs for the past years are not real Philippine-made products but actually imported from Thailand and Singapore, according to some of the delegates.

Florence, according to Blanca, has no current direct buyer, but has been supplying “Al-Rashid” with its products through the Saudi company’s Manila office.

During the first day of the exhibition, Tomas Medina, head of the 7-man delegation, received at least twenty importers and said that half of them are “potential buyers.” He is expecting more Saudi businessmen to visit the Philippine booth until the closing of the exhibition today.

Though not part of the official delegation, Jenny Paterno, business development assistant manager, and Nick Refuerzo, area customer development manager, both of Unilever Foods Philippines, came with the group to follow up with their buyers on the pending orders worth 460,000 received by their company after their participation in the selling mission held in October last year.

The Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), an export promotions agency of the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry, organized the participation of the Philippine delegates.

Jaime Antonio Sandoval, CITEM’s general services division chief, encouraged returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who plan to venture into small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) to participate in regional trade fairs in the Philippines — held every three months.

He said these are avenues that they could probably get the materials they need to know other industries, other than food, such as furniture and garments.

“We are trying to put it into a higher level to prepare them for the export market later on,” said Sandoval.