The two posts below are from The Cocoman Philippines blog. I have posted them here because, for some strange reason, people still checkout this blog from time to time. The Cocoman blog will become popular in years to come, (he types modestly), but the guys need all the help they can get to build their business now, and every little bit of publicity helps.
I have to point out that Maria Lani manufactures its own premium quality, raw VCO, and the people who produce our oil need their jobs as well. Unfortuately we are not in a position to help our friends as much as we would like. However, as Maria Lani grows, we may well be able to help other producers in The Philippines.
Right, lets tell you a little about Cocoman Philippines; a new company, based in Calubian, Leyte.
Cocoman Philippines produces some of the finest virgin coconut oil you will find anywhere. I can guarantee that, because several of the workers used to work for me, when I was running Cocovida. Unemployed after I left the company, the guys were desperate to find work. The majority of the producers of natural, raw VCO, have been forced to close because they simply can't compete on price with the factory manufacturers of very cheap, vastly inferior oil, so the job opportunities open to the guys were virtually non-existent.
Luckily there are some beautiful people out there,......or even out here. Ronnie and Dahlia Quimbo decided that they had to help out the people in the area surrounding their hometown. What better way than to set up a plant producing raw VCO and associated products. Then they could help the local community to help themselves. What made the idea even better was the fact that they had some of the finest exponents of raw VCO production living close by. It sounds like a good idea to me,.......but only if they can find a market for their products. Let's hope I can be of some small assistance. The employees at Cocovida were brilliant to me. You can still see them on the videos shown on numerous VCO sites. Whether, making videos showing the production process, or singing and dancing with The Cocovida band; these are special people.
You can see Ronnie wearing the pink t-shirt in one of the photographs above, standing with Zac and Edgar of YouTube fame. Ronnie has ploughed a lot of money into building a VCO plant. I doubt very much if he will ever recoup his outlay, but some people just do things to help others.
