Abrand is successful when it has withstood the test of time, and for years has become a household name. That is when one needs or thinks of a product, the brand automatically comes to mind and is the preferred choice among others.
Among many Filipinos and millions of consumers around the world, a cheese spread would mean Cheez Whiz and an instant orange drink would translate to Tang. Meanwhile, most overseas Filipinos would prefer Toblerone and Cadbury Dairy Milk for chocolate ‘pasalubong’ to their families and loved ones back home.
Of course, the most popular cookie, Oreo, has also become the main ingredient of merienda as well as various milk teas, sundaes, shakes and cold coffee mixes. Known for its playful cookie moments especially among young children, it has even recently set the new Guinness World Records title with 5,066 people dunking cookies simultaneously all over the world.
In the Philippines, no one is happier than Ashish Pisharodi, the Country Director of Mondelez Philippines, Inc., for these positive developments. Mondelez Philippines is the maker of the abovementioned and beloved products Tang, Eden Cheese and Cheez Whiz. The Company has long been a leader in the powdered beverage and cheese categories in the country with these brands. More recently however, the Company has been gaining more ground in the broader snacking market, with its strong brands like Oreo, Tiger, Toblerone and Cadbury Dairy Milk.
Ashish, or Ash as he is fondly called, is the Country Director, a position he has held since 2015. The Philippines operation includes Commercial Functions as well as Manufacturing at the facility located in Sucat, Parañaque.
Ashish is single-mindedly focused on making bold moves to transform Mondelez Philippines into the best and most-loved snacking company in the Philippines, an agenda where remarkable progress has already been achieved in the last few years. The Company has also risen to become the #1 chocolates manufacturer in Modern Trade in the country (Nielsen Retail Data Full Year 2019).
Ashish says it’s a great blessing for the Company to have earned the consumers’ trust over the years. “It really makes us proud and grateful that we provide our consumers with something they enjoy. They reciprocate the love, and thereby make our products leaders in many categories,” he said. But more than anything else, Ashish said, the Company’s focus would always be on “Snacking Made Right”: To provide consumers with the right snack, for the right moment, made the right way.
Ashish knows the organization well, having held various formative and leadership roles across India and the Philippines over almost 20 years. He joined the Company in 2000 as the Head of Trade Marketing for India. After 11 years in various roles in India, he moved to the Philippines in 2011 as Sales Director. He was subsequently Director for Sales and Strategy for the Philippines and then went on to run the Meals Category, including Eden and Cheez Whiz, as Category Director for South East Asia, before he was appointed the Country Director.
Mindful Snacking and Well-Being Snacks
“Globally, people are increasingly interested in well-being for themselves and for their families. People are interested in and are more attuned to the connection between what they eat and their feeling of wellness. Their preferences are evolving, and they are demanding a more holistic approach to their well-being, which goes beyond just physical well-being,” he shares about the Company’s direction.
That’s why at Mondelēz International globally, Ashish said, the goal is to be a global leader in mindful and sustainable snacking. Helping people mindfully enjoy the snacks they love and stay in physical and emotional balance is the Company’s primary mission. Since 2013, the company has evolved its well-being portfolio approach to address those areas that are important to consumers: removing what they don’t want and adding more of what they do.
For instance, Mondelez Philippines locally has worked to reduce the sugar content of Tang, which now offers among the lowest sugar per 200 ml serving among beverages sold in the market. And to continue to inspire Filipinos to snack mindfully, the company offers snacks with 200 kcal or less like Cadbury Dairy Milk 15g bar, Cadbury 5Star 15g bar, Mini Oreo pouch packs 23g, Oreo 3-piece packs 28g, and belVita single 20g among others.
“These are portion controlled packs, which means meeting specific Nutrition Requirements, with energy less than 200 kcal per serving and individually pre-portioned packs, which help consumers to snack mindfully. Consumers today no longer want to choose between snacking and eating right.” Ashish explained.
The company continues to redesign the snacking experience by evolving its portfolio and renovating the nutrition and ingredient profile of its bestselling brands. “We’re also growing our well-being brands faster than our base portfolio each year globally and innovating snacks for the future,” Ashish said.
“Globally too we work to ensure our products are not only delicious but are made with ingredients that are sustainably sourced, produced and delivered, with positive impact along the supply chain,” he added.
A Delicious Career at Mondelez Philippines
A visit at the Company’s manufacturing facility in Parañaque gives this writer a deja vu of childhood dreams. The well-manicured garden is complete with colorful concrete seats made to look like Oreo biscuits, Eden cheese, and Toblerone, among others. Perhaps this refreshing environment mirrors the culture inside the Company. As Ashish shares, he said he finds it fulfilling whenever the Company dedicates time for family gatherings especially on special occasions like Christmas. “Almost every one of our 450 employees were here last Christmas, sharing foods, gifts, and happy moments with one another. It’s always a great experience for all of us. We also recognized loyal employees who have been with us for 5, 10, 20 years and so on,” he said.
Not known to many, one of Ashish’s ‘first missions’ as Country Director was to evolve further the Joy Schools program, to teach public school students along with their parents and teachers the value of a nutritious and balanced meal.
“We actually started off with a feeding program within the communities where we do business. We prepared meals for the kids and found out that the children kept coming back to school regularly because of the rice meal. Later, we learned that what we were giving them was pretty much the only decent, proper meal they are having for the day! So that’s how we started and eventually we taught the parents to prepare the right meal for their kids as well as the many little ways for them to earn and fend for their children,” Ashish reminisced.
And that simple program rose to become the company’s flagship CSR program across South East Asia. These days with the Joy Schools, Mondelez Philippines now partners with government agencies, and NGOs to provide quality, sturdy plastic play areas made of recycled plastic waste and packages, to select public schools. The latest beneficiary would be a school in Quezon City where the recycled plastic slide would be turned over this first quarter of 2020.
Moving on, Mondelez Philippines has also responded to the global call to save Mother Earth via a long-term vision for zero-net waste packaging.
Mondelez Philippines Commits to Recycling with PARMS
Mondelez Philippines joined the Philippine Alliance for Recycling and Materials Sustainability (PARMS) in support of the company’s global commitment to make all their packaging recyclable by 2025.
PARMS is a multi-stakeholder coalition consisting of members across the waste management value chain. It is premised on developing and implementing a holistic and comprehensive program to increase resource recovery and reduce landfill dependence, leading towards a zero waste Philippines.
Mondelez Philippines joined PARMS together with other corporations in the country to invest in a Php 25-M residual plastic recycling facility that will address the need to recycle plastics. To date PARMS has partnered with the Parañaque local government which will serve as the pilot site for the recycling program. Collection of plastic waste through seven schools in the City has already begun. These plastic wastes will be turned into recycled building bricks, which will be turned over to the schools for their use in facilities improvement.
With more than half a century of business operations in the country—57 to be exact—Mondelez Philippines has indeed provided Filipinos the well-loved snack products known all over the world, as well as the culture of mindful snacking. Apart from this, the company has also worked to help protect the well-being of the planet. This includes continuous reduction of the Company’s use of water and energy, and carbon emissions.
In addition, the Company works to reduce the waste it creates through its manufacturing. To date, 98% of the total waste generated from its Sucat, Parañaque plant are either recyclable or recycled, such as glass bottles or paper cartons. It also works with 3rd party partners to use product waste for animal feeds. Inside their plant, there is also a materials recovery facility (MRF) which properly handles, segregates and shreds any packaging waste and sent to a cement-industry partner.
The company also vows to eliminate 65 million kg of packaging material worldwide. “We live up to our purpose: sustainable snacking. It is about creating a future where people and planet thrive by creating resilient ingredient supply chains, reducing our environmental impact and developing zero-net waste packaging. We’re producing our snacks with less energy, water and waste; and sourcing our ingredients more sustainably,” the Country Director concluded.