Rayner Ediza mans his Siomai ni Bai food stall, one of the concepts that he came up with to cushion the effects of the slowdown in his seafood trading business.
(CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
When Rayner Ediza first thought of setting up his own seafood trading business in 2014, nobody seemed to care, not even his family and friends.
Ediza, a 34-year-old Information Technology (IT) professional, said he had the idea and the right mindset, but he lacked capital and support from his loved ones.
“When I initially opened up about my plans to them, there was no reaction, wala lang,” he said in an interview with Cebu Daily News.
This was not Ediza’s first business venture as he used to sell shoes, perfumes, and organic fertilizer on the sidelines while working as one of the IT personnel for a pawnshop chain in the last 11 years.
His inclination for business is fueled by his desire to eventually retire as an entrepreneur.
Even then, his wife Grace was conservative and was not keen on making another investment, much more on seafood trading, which is considered as among the most competitive industries in the Philippines today.
Being an only child, the Badian native said he did not have anyone else to talk to.
Perseverance
While Ediza did not take this against his wife and other members of the family, he admitted that the absence of enthusiasm from the people around him almost made him turn his back on his idea.
“But if I gave up, I will lose. Back then, I didn’t care if the odds were all against me. I decided not to quit,” he said.
After acquiring a P15,000 credit card loan, Ediza started bringing in dried fish from Palawan under RKSeafoods Trading in October, three years ago.
The business is named after Ediza’s eldest child, Raven Kyrie, who is three years old. He lives in Lapu-Lapu City with his wife and two children, the younger one being one-year-old Keian Keizha.
Supply from Palawan
Ediza’s supply came from his wife’s aunt in Palawan who owns a small fishery business, but now he also sources fresh fish from Zamboanga.
Since his wife is from Palawan, they go there every year, and what he noticed was that the fish there are cheaper than in Cebu.
“It’s cheaper there (Palawan) by 50 percent. Fish costs P60 to P80 per kilo in Palawan, but when they get to Cebu, each kilo costs P180 to P200,” he said, adding that this gave him the idea of setting up his own fish trading business here.
At first, it was not easy for Ediza to convince clients to get him as a supplier, facing rejection from one business owner to another.
Siomai ni Bai
His first big client was a mall in southern Cebu, where he supplied fish to for more than one year.
Ediza earned P80,000 every month for the first six months, but demand dropped around 2015, reducing his monthly income to P50,000.
This was when the entrepreneur thought of diversifying his revenue stream, coming up with a franchise food cart concept called Siomai ni Bai. His capitalization for this new venture was P25,000.
Today, Ediza has carts deployed in Mandaue City, Lapu-Lapu City, Moalboal, and even Palawan as well as a franchise outlet in Day-as in Cebu City.
Siomai ni Bai has been Ediza’s focus since then because his seafood trading business was just earning enough to get by.
However, sales began to pick up again for RKSeafoods when, after joining the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Kapatid Mentor Me program, Ediza was introduced to prospective buyers.
Ediza’s mentors at the program linked him with a restaurant chain that now gets their supply of fish from RKSeafoods, turning his monthly income of P80,000 then to six figures now.
Ready-to-eat squid
The entrepreneur plans to expand his seafood trading business by introducing ready-to-eat squid from Palawan, but cooked and packed here in Cebu.
He has already gotten a warehouse in Mandaue City which he rents for P15,000 a month, where he will use a storage facility for dried and fresh fish as well as a production area for his ready-to-eat squid product.
And while Ediza considers this development far from a “success story,” he said his hard work has definitely paid off.
After he graduated from batch of the DTI mentorship program, he said his wife and the rest of his family are more supportive of him now.
“I have been shaped by all the rejection and discouragement. Whatever difficulties that may come my way in the future, I can handle them,” he said.