Sixteen Filipino social enterprises will be among the 1,400 exhibitors at the Winter Fancy Food Show, the largest specialty food trade event in the U.S., to promote their products and trade with the visiting 19,000 buyers from all over the United States.
The Center for International Trade Exhibitions and Missions, the export promotions arm of the Department of Trade and Industry, will travel with the businesses to the WFFS 2016 exhibition at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California on Jan. 17 to 19.
“What Food Philippines will bring to WFFS are products that stand out, not only for their high export quality, but also for their cultural, economic and environmental significance and advocacies,” said Citem executive director Rosvi Gaetos.
Center for International Trade Exhibitions and Missions executive director Rosvi Gaetos “With the participating social enterprises are the narratives of the people, places and practices surrounding their produce,” Gaetos said as she cited “social responsibility” as the theme of the Philippine participation in the WFFS 2016.
The participating social enterprises are Brandexports Philippines Inc. / Peace and Equity Foundation, Franklin Baker Company of the Philippines, Fruits of Life Inc., Hatchgrove Enterprise and JUD Products Philippines Inc., whose products come mainly from coconuts. To view the other participating enterprises please click here.
Social enterprises are medium, small and micro enterprises driven primarily by the will to uplift the local communities. There were some 30,000 social enterprises in the Philippines based on the 2007 estimate, mostly cooperatives and associations, and 500 micro-finance institutions.
By sheer number, the MSMEs generated 4.9 million jobs in 2012, nearly doubling the 2.66 million jobs posted by large enterprises. Of the 64.97 percent of total jobs generated by MSMEs, 47 percent or 2.3 million were spawned by micro-enterprises, 41.8 percent or 2 million by small, and only 11.2 percent or 553,097 by medium.
Constituting the networks of social entrepreneurs are grassroots communities of small-scale producers, which are given capacity-building trainings and skills development seminars. Children of economically-challenged families in the participating communities are also offered scholarships funded by the enterprise and/or its donors.
The Philippine pavilion will be at booth numbers 4228 to 4243 at the South Hall of the Moscone Convention Center.
For more information on the event, please visit www.specialtyfood.com
Source: thestandard.com.ph
