In 1997, AgriNurture Inc., producer and exporter of agricultural products, established First Class Agriculture (FCA) as an addition to its growing number of affiliated businesses that include Fresh and Green Harvest Company, Best Choice Harvest, Fruitilicious, Nutri-licious Marketing, Lucky Fruit and Vegetable Products, and M2000 IMEX Co., all guided by (its slogan) to offer FRESH and CHOICE and ALWAYS in all stages of its operations.”

The company, says Antonio L. Tiu, FCA president and chief executive officer, brings “wet marketing” to a higher level. “Consumers won’t get the kind of taste our vegetables have with less fresh vegetables they normally chance upon in public markets,” he says, attributing the difference in the “meticulous selection of (our) freshly picked high quality (products), carefully handled, packed and transported with care, and delivered and replaced at source – all within 24 hours. Thus, FCA veggies are not just ‘vegielicious.’ but are also vegie-safe.’”

With agricultural farms in, among others, the provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan, Tarlac, Zambales, and, Benguet in northern Philippines; and in Bohol, Davao, and Jolo in the south, FCA’s vegetable products belong to four vegetable categories, i.e. leafy vegetables; edible vegetable fruits; tubers and roots; and bean pods, as well as spices, to include eggplant, tomato, bitter gourd (ampalaya), chayote (fruits and tops, such as kangkong), sweet potato, squash (fruits, flower and tops), string beans, lima beans, taro, banana heart, chili pepper tops (siling labuyo), bamboo shoots (labong), and moringa (malunggay) – all distributed at Henry Sy’s SM’s chain of supermarkets and Hypermarket stores, as well as Makro Supermarkets, among others.

More than providing healthy produce, FCA’s biggest differentiator from other businesses in the agro-business industry, however, is in allowing entrepreneurs to benefit from FCA products – mainly done not just by tapping micro, small and medium vegetable producing entrepreneurs, but also by offering FCA as a franchise business opportunity to MSMEs.

With an investment amount of “as low as P100,000 per cart, inclusive of one-month product supply, promotional assistance, and first-year royalty payout,” an entrepreneur can start selling FCA products and “earn a very realistic sales of P3,000 to P6,000 daily,”

Tiu says, basing the figures on initial FCA business studies. This means that, even with succeeding-year royalty and sales/promotions fees pegged at P40,000, investments are guaranteed returned in only six to eight months of the first year of operations.}

“Pessimists would say that it’s a bad time to start any business due to the bad economic climate,” says Tiu, who did public administration studies at the University of the Philippines, and a degree in business at the De La Salle University. “But let’s qualify that. In times like these, the type of business that would flourish is one that deals with products that are considered basic needs of consumers, products attuned to the people’s downward lifestyle adjustment. The FCA cart business figures favorably in reference to (these) two business parameters, thus, an investor has little or zero business risk with the FCA investment proposition. The business is attractive as it is, and the timing is simply perfect.”

Franchising with FCA means “all FCA vegetables will be made available to the investors – from FCA leafy vegetables, lowland vegetables, upland vegetables and hard vegetables; to vegetable by-products, like kimchi, vegie ball, vegie lumpia,” Tiu says. Better yet, the partnership also brings non-stop support from FCA for the duration of the franchise – something that FCA is proud of, since its staff “works roundthe- clock to deliver on (its) committed quality of vegetables.”