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| Mr. Moo's dairy products in Ilagan, Isabela |
Corn farming is a centuries-old industry in the City of Ilagan, capital of Isabela province. It was, according to history, a major activity among the earliest Ibanags, even predating the Spanish arrival in the Cagayan Valley region in 1856.
Centuries later, in August 2015, in time of Ilagan's third cityhood anniversary, the Department of Agriculture (DA) conferred the title, "Corn Capital of the Philippines," to the now 338-year-old town, whose soils yield 250,000 metric tons of the crop per year. Corn is such a blessing to the city that it also paved a path for another agricultural gem.
"We are eyeing and contemplating that in the near future, aside from being the corn capital, we are contemplating to become the dairy capital," said Josemarie L. Diaz, Ilagan's chief executive, during the press conference for this year's Mammangi Festival—the city's annual celebration that pays tribute to its farmers and corn harvest.
Diaz takes pride with the recent visit of DA Regional Directors from Mindanao, who conducted benchmarking on the city’s facilities and production practices, all while Ilagan's milk industry is still in its infancy. It is also the agricultural stature of being the corn basket, says Diaz, that lured a two-decade-old milk business that originated far down south into finally putting up a processing plant in Ilagan and began expanding its presence in the region.
Cow Breeding Farm
Situated within a 20-hectare agricultural complex in Brgy. Namnama where no public jeepneys or buses are yet to ply, Jeaox Breeding Farm occupies 20,000 square meters of the area, surrounded mainly by corn plantations interspersed with different fruit-bearing trees, patches of grasses and shrubs—a common scene around the agricultural city.
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| Jeaox Breeding Farm in Ilagan, Isabela |
Jeaox maintains two cattle houses: one for the fattening cows, which are of Brahman breed raised for their meat, and the other carrying the cross-bred Holstein-Jersey cows which produces the city's dairy.
"Our total cows here in Jeaox Breeding Farm are close to a thousand, but the milking cows are only about 200," says Bea Bayabo, Jeaox's farm manager, as we walked amidst the cow yard. The cattle farm has been around for three years already, but they started the operations for dairy only in July 2023. As of writing, Jeaox produces an average of 1,000 liters of milk per day according to Bayabo.
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| Holstein-Jersey cows |
To extract milk, the dairy herd is brought daily to the farm's herringbone-type milking parlor, a facility which is said to be capable of milking 32 cows at a time and storing 3,000 liters of raw milk.
The farm-fresh dairy harvests are then transported to the milk plant, also located within the complex, where they undergo homogenization and low-heat pasteurization, then turned into flavored milk drink, yogurt, patillas and ice cream.
"These are the facilities that we have developed rapidly since the last time you visited us here," Diaz told the media, referring to our visit during the previous festival held in August 2023.
Mr. Moo’s Dairy
The flavored milk drinks are marketed in the region as Mr. Moo’s—its branding represented by a Holstein Friesian cow mascot and a jingle that would surely linger in one’s head for hours.
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| Mr. Moo's milk plant |
“Mr. Moo’s brand is actually a 20-year-old company [that] started in Tagaytay,” narrates Bayabo on the origin of the enterprise that partnered with the Ilagan-born Jeaox Breeding Farm.
The former Mr. Moo’s Milk Planet Co. was started by Juan Miguel Mercado as a small business that helps local dairy farmers, linking them directly to the end consumers via toll manufacturing. “Mr. Mercado will purchase the milk from the farmers and then ask someone to process it for him, and then he will market it as Mr. Moo’s,” explained Bayabo.
Fast forward to present, since corn silage is the cows’ main diet, Mr. Moo’s owners found Ilagan a perfect place to finally put up their own manufacturing plant. The cost to produce silage in Ilagan is only Php 2.15 per kilo, while in the provinces near Tagaytay costs Php 10, says Diaz, emphasizing the city’s edge over other corn-producing localities.
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| Inside the milk plant |
Currently, Mr. Moo’s has five franchises and six branches, two of which are in Region II—in Ilagan and Cauayan—and a branch in Tuguegarao City is set to open as of writing.
A Perfect Pasalubong
Mr. Moo’s offers eight flavors of chilled milk drink, four variants of yogurt and four pastillas flavors. Ice cream products, says Bayabo, are currently under experimentation.
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| Pastillas makers |
The milk plant also produces milk drinks packaged in high density polyethylene (HDPE) containers, which extends up to six months the shelf life of the highly perishable product. These are intended for the local government’s feeding programs where Mr. Moo’s participates in.
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| Milk in HDPE packaging |
Ilagan’s milk factory and cattle houses could potentially draw tourists for a farm and/or plant tours, and the dairy produce seems to soon become an official pasalubong from the city. In fact, Mr. Moo’s Ilagan is located just across the Giant Butaka monument, one of the city’s attractions, where the tourist information center and a pasalubong store that sells inatata and binallay (Ilagan’s famous rice cakes) also stands.
As the city reputed for its corn envisions it, will Ilagan be also our country's version of Wisconsin (U.S. state) and soon become known as the Philippines' Dairyland?
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DJ Rivera is an I.T. professional, entrepreneur, travel blogger, writer and the online publisher of PinoyTravelogue.com based in Rizal province, Philippines. Click here to know more.
