Eat Well. Do Good. Feel FaBOOlous!
HOW WE STARTED: From GK Enchanted Farm to Magdalena, Laguna
Incubated at GK Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan in 2016, CalaBoo Dairyard was inspired by Tito Tony Meloto who challenged the founder to love the poor as family and to dream big for the Philippines. Soon after, the Philippine Carabao Center joined in with their enthusiastic support and expert guidance. In 2018, our headquarters moved to Magdalena, a small town with a history of carabao dairying and some smallholder farmers already trained by PCC in modern dairying practices. It also happens to be the founder’s ancestral home.
WHAT WE’RE DOING NOW Since COVID-19: Delivering Wholeness from Farm-to-Fridge
The pandemic brought about an elegant solution when the Philippine Carabao Center, MAGCO and CalaBoo had an emergency meeting in late March 2020 to discuss how our collective efforts can keep the milk flowing and protect the livelihood of the carabao dairy farmers: CalaBoo’s Farm-to-Fridge Dairy (F2F) Subscription Program through online orders with home delivery.
F2F is our immediate and sustainable response to provide consumers a regular source of healthful foods to provide for their families’ nutritional needs, while allowing farmers to continue to produce and support their families. We’re able provide fresh dairy regularly and address shelf-life limitations without resorting to artificial additives and highly processed fixes that greatly diminish the natural goodness of carabao milk.
And with more Filipinos needing to secure new sources of income, we’ve engaged with a handful of trusted Resellers in Metro Manila — and soon in parts of Laguna — aligned with our values and advocacy.
We plan to continue to explore new and innovative dairy products to cater to the ever-shifting tastes of our adventurous and discerning customers.
WHERE WE ARE GOING: Our Dairyard Dreams
With the way things have been shaping up, CalaBoo started to expand our involvement in other links of the dairy value chain, moving upstream to fill in the gaps. We’re finishing up a new mini facility, since the LGU refused to relinquish control of processing originally intended to benefit the smallholder dairy farmers.
Driven by a core team of women who proved their mettle at the start of the pandemic, we’re more intentional about community development by laying the groundwork for a dairy hub, the Dairyard: a mixed-use, agri-tourism ecosystem for a communal dairy farm and other community-owned and operated enterprises that feature all things carabao.
Meet the Cream Team
We’re a mötley croo of audacious believers who kept the faith and powered through the odds, determined to keep the milk flowing after all these years of development. By the grace of God and stout-heartedness of a few intrepid women, our collective dream is slowly unfolding, day by day, drop by drop. While we have a core team running the day-to-day, we also have our group of co-founders, loyal supporters and advisors (you know who you are), with special acknowledgement of GK Enchanted Farm, Bayan Academy/Ateneo Graduate School of Business mentors and MESEDEV family.
If you’re interested in CalaBoo-rating with us, we can be reached at calaboodream@gmail.com.
Founder and CEO
MagCo Members
Milkers and Makers
Our troops on the ground along the dairy value chain: big-hearted, hard-working men and women of Magdalena
Bea Perdon
Chief Marketing Officer
The Calaboo Cooento
Events in 2020 have changed the course of history, changing everyone’s lives forever. Yet, in the midst of the death and destruction brought on by the pandemic, pockets of hope and enclaves of compassion and cooperation emerged. It is in this context that we share our CalaBoo 2.0 story.
What started as a balikbayan’s desire to give back to her inang bayan, CalaBoo is now a collective of courageous rural women (and farmers!) pursuing dreams for their families and their quaint town called Magdalena.
COVID19’S SILVER LINING: WOMEN ARISE!
CalaBoo’s lockdown trapped us with other women-led households; the shared struggles and stresses put on great pressure on these women–katulong, kusinera, labandera (all recipients of DSWD’s 4Ps)–revealing them to be diamonds in the rough, instrumental to the re-invigoration of CalaBoo.
COMMUNITY IS THE NEW FAMILY
The lockdown contained a small community of different families working together under one roof, imposing an isolation that birthed intimacy through nightly prayer, worship and Bible study, inexorably transforming relationships into kapamilya.
LOVING THE POOR AS FAMILY
The expanded perspective of the community as a family allowed us to see those living in poverty as a family to be loved. We saw that many young children living “sa liblib” in other barangays are malnourished. As such, we all agreed to expand CalaBoo’s mission to also nourish these children in body, soul and spirit. (In addition to the street children we’re supporting in Metro Manila).
GOD AS THE HEAD OF OUR PAMILYA
CalaBoo’s ongoing modest gains, despite incredible odds, showed us that Our Father is faithful. Our shared experience of trusting the Lord with all our hearts, not leaning on our own understanding and acknowledging Him in all our ways, showed us time and time again that He does make straight our paths.
So while we’re busy milking, making and marketing, we are just as occupied with praying, feeding, and teaching, sharing the Good News of hope and the loyal love of Christ to the next generation of farmers and stewards of nature.
In reading our CalaBoo 2.0 story and patronizing our products, we hope that you, too, get to “Taste and See that the Lord is Good!”
We’re Blessed to Participate
