The Peanut Kisses, a sweet concoction of peanuts and egg white, has been a favorite Boholano delicacy for more than four decades and is now slowly finding its way beyond the region.
The conception
Who would have thought that the World War II could actually be the sole reason for the conception of Peanut Kisses? Stuck in a faraway town of Buenavista, Bohol due to the raging Pacific war, Carolina Alvarez Butalid had a great amount of time in her hand, and an even greater amount of peanuts in their family-owned, two-hectare of peanut plantation. Making use of the idle time, Carolina experimented with peanuts and eggs, and the Peanut Kisses came to be.
Originally, the newly created confectionery was for personal consumption, for relatives and family visitors. Not until the 1960s that Butalid saw its business potential and decided to mass produce the product. Butalid, with the help of her children started producing Peanut Kisses on a commercial scale which had easily found its way to the hearts and taste buds of the whole province and its neighboring city, Cebu. It wouldn’t be too long that the Peanut Kisses’ popularity would catch the attention and interest of big manufacturers and distributors like the San Miguel Corporation and the Rustan’s Commercial Corporation.
The business
Located in the central city of Tagbilaran, Bohol, the Peanut Kisses is being produced by BUCAREZ Food Processing Corporation, a permutation of the name of the founder herself, Carolina Butalid Alvarez, since the early 1960s. By 1996, majority of the stocks was bought by the Alturas Group of Companies which line of business ranges from food and marine products manufacturing, rice import, farming, supermarket operations, to travel agencies.
While the AGC takes over a big part of the ownership, Carolina’s son Linfred Alvarez is still handling the company’s main marketing and operations.
Over the years, BUCAREZ Food Processing Corporation has improved the distribution of Peanut Kisses, although for about 80% of its total production remains to be in Tagbilaran, Bohol. The remaining 20% distribution is strewn over Cebu, Iligan, Cagayan de Oro and Manila.
To sustain the growing demand for their product and maintain the company’s vision, BFPC invested on new machines that would enhance and upgrade the level of processing and further improve their production capacity.
This development started when the company sought and was granted DOST assistance in the early 1990s through Manufacturing Productivity Enhancement for Export Promotion (MPEX) program. BFPC became the first ever beneficiary of MPEX in Bohol. This signalled the unwavering support of DOST through the years of operation of BFPC.
MPEX was geared to help out in the improvement of plant layout and identification of appropriate equipment and machinery.
DOST also helped in redesigning the packaging of Peanut Kisses, not only graphically but more importantly, for conformance to nutritional labeling requirements, and package development to extend its shelf life from 3 weeks to 1 year. Through the intervention of DOST, Peanut Kisses obtains a more global cut it certainly deserves.
Through the aid of DOST, the annual production of Peanut Kisses grew by 117% in 2006. The company also doubled their annual sales, and is currently constructing a new processing plant.
Currently, BFPC employs nearly a hundred workers according to Francis Scrinas, the Operation Manager of the company. This is to support the company’s increasing production process.
The process
The 100 workers begin the process by intensive selection and sorting of peanuts which came 50% from Negros and 50% from Manila. “The smaller kind of peanuts from Negros is much tastier,” says Serinas. But they need to mix them tip with much bigger peanuts from Manila for the practical reason that smaller peanuts stick and may get stuck to their grinding machines.
About ten persons manually do the sorting process. These people have to make sure that no rejects will pass their eyes. The rejects are brought about by the shipping and poor storage in ports.
After the thorough selection process comes the roasting of shelled peanuts. The roasting process, done old school with pile of woods beneath a large oven, takes about 30 to 40 minutes. The roasted peanuts will then be cooled down for 15 minutes with the use of blowers.
Once the cooling is through, grinding of peanuts begins. On the grinding process, they intentionally do not remove the peanut coat. “This adds up to the color of the Peanut Kisses and to its nutritional value,” says Serinas.
“While this process is being done, a different set of people takes charge of the cleaning and disinfecting of eggs.” Serinas continues. “They will then break the eggs and separate the egg yolk from the egg white.”
The ground peanuts and egg white are then mixed together, then sugar and other flavouring are then added. Lastly, Peanut Kisses wouldn’t be Peanut Kisses without its shape and form. The sweet concoction is molded manually to finally take the shape and form of miniature Chocolate Hills.
On going international
With the quality of the product, why not export it?
“We have to sweep first on our own backyard” are the strong words. of Mrs. Carolina Butalid Alvarez. True enough, there are a lot of things to iron out before going overseas. With the help of DOST and DTI, the company was able to utilize LTV coating for packaging, but even this will have to be changed with new material and packaging design by the time they go abroad.
The company will also have to come up with a detailed study of international market and competitive analysis of their product. At an easy glance, they will have to compete with commercial juggernauts like M&M’s and coincidentally, Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses; which can also be a matter of infraction on the international trademark law.
From the looks of it, the time may still be far when Bucarez Food Processing Corporation will start to export the Peanut Kisses. But with the quality and salient characteristics of the product that shouts proudly Pinoy, it couldn’t be that far. After all, not so many candies can claim they have national heritage in them, can’t they?