Ripe for the picking: Turning a simple idea to a fruitful enterprise

Posted on: June 24, 2025

Written by: Josephine M. Ramos

With business in mind, Felicitas Baldonado created various fruit products, which she markets to the public and showcases at trade fairs.

Felicitas Baldonado, a 65-year-old entrepreneur from San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, turns delicious fruits—including dragon fruit, soursop, guava, grapes, cucumber, mango, and more—into all-natural vinegar and wine. Her commitment to using 100% natural ingredients, with no added preservatives, sets her productions apart.

Her innovative idea started after noticing ripe mangoes falling and rotting on the ground in her yard, sometimes even trampled by children playing nearby.

Inspired by the lesson on vinegar-making by a pastor from their church, she collected fallen ripe mangoes and placed them in a tumbler. After letting them ferment for six months, she produced her homemade vinegar, hitting the right balance of taste and sourness.

Driven by this early success, Felicitas began experimenting with fruit-based wine with the help of a food processor friend.

In 2019, she officially launched her products and began marketing them to the public. She also produced concentrated juice and alamang (fermented shrimp paste), which her customers loved.

To expand her reach, Felicitas began participating in trade fairs in 2021. A year later, her creativity and persistence were recognized when she was awarded Innovative Enterprise of the Year at one of the trade fairs she participated in. That same year, she expanded her product line by adding pickled papaya, bitter gourd, onions, and chili while continuing to explore other fruit-based ideas.

With four regular and five seasonal employees, her enterprise—JJS Food Product, named after her grandchildren—now produces around 50 bottles of wine and vinegar daily. Felicitas ensures her workers are compensated and given additional incentives when the business does well.

She also acknowledges CARD Bank as her long-time partner in growth. She became a client in 2009, taking a PHP 5,000 loan for a small ukay-ukay (second-hand clothing) business. She has a PHP 200,000.00 loan that she used to purchase additional materials and ingredients for her business.

“Every day brings new opportunities; what’s important is to grab them and transform them into something extraordinary that would capture the attention of your target customers,” she said.

In the future, she aims to enter large grocery stores and expand the reach of her products beyond Mindoro and other regions, sharing her proudly natural creations with more Filipinos nationwide.