Balut Case Study

The Business Side of Balut

Balut and Penoys are culturally intertwined. Worldwide, ducks are raised primarily for meat. But not in the Philippines, where 80 percent of duck eggs are turned into balut. It is a Php1.3 billion industry. The Philippines produces more than 50 thousand metric tons of duck eggs a year and is dominated by smallholders or backyard raisers in rural areas with less than 90 per household, representing 80 percent of the approximately 10 million ducks in the Philippines. The rest are raised by large-scale commercial operators. There has been a shift of production from Region IV to Region III producers led by Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Bulacan. There are no dominant players in the duck but certainly balutans or balut

He is producing about 20,000 balut eggs a day on his 1.6-hectare property. Santiago shares that he started his business in 1993 selling commercial duck feed to balutans. Although his dealership enjoyed brisk sales, supply problems forced him to close shop. The enterprising Santiago and wife, Shirley also started a number of small ventures, such as a fishpond and a store, to augment their business income. Their balutan, which started with just 1,000 ducks, on the other hand, kept on growing. While balut production has not been mechanized, commercial producers like Santiago removed the guesswork by holding eggs against a light bulb to check for embryos. Those with a developing chick are sold as balut, the rest as penoy. The perfect balut is 17 to 18 days old, at which point it is said to be balutsaputi or wrapped in white, which is what most people want and is the most profitable, says Santiago. Covering the Supply Chain.Typically, fresh duck eggs are brought by viajeros or traders from commercial duck farms to balut processors or balutan, which producebalut, penoy, salted eggs, and century eggs. Once ready for sale, traders bring them to retailers which then sell them to consumers on the streets. Balutans also supply day-old ducklings since there are no specialized hatcheries in the Philippines. Generally, balutans accept

It is a cost-effective way to avert negative results in the mass production of communication materials. Pretesting can inform the production staff whether text, illustrations and color are correctly understood or interpreted by the intended audience. Since differences in socio-economic status, education and cultural patterns influence the way audiences perceive and interpret communication materials. Miscommunication can likely happen unless planners obtain feedback from the people to whom the materials are aimed at. Pretesting will also ensure that there is nothing offensive and culturally unacceptable in those materials (www.devcompage.com/pretestingcommunication