Cover December 16, 2024

The Taste of Legacy: Transforming Family Values Into Business Excellence, According to Chairman William Tiu Lim of Mega Prime Foods Inc.

Mega Prime Foods Chairman William Tiu Lim shares the rise of Mega Sardines, and the importance of empowering the next generation.

In pantries and kitchen cupboards across the Philippines, you will be sure to find cans of Mega Sardines. Through the years, the brand has become a Filipino staple, an indispensable part of daily life, ubiquitous on grocery shelves, in sari-sari stores, and on dining tables all over the country. To attain this unique place in both Filipino culture and industry, William Tiu Lim began with one fishing boat and grew his business into a conglomerate: Mega Global Corporation. Foremost among Mega Global’s subsidiaries is Mega Prime Foods Inc., home to the Mega Sardines brand, which he runs together with his wife Marylou and all five of their children.

In a first-of-its-kind interview, The Business Manual spoke to Mega founder and Chairman William Tiu Lim, Marylou Tiu Lim, Vice Chairman, and all five of their children who make up the entire executive committee of Mega Prime Foods Inc. Together, they talked about the legacy of William, who is now 70 years old, the company’s social responsibility, their history of growth, their hopes for the future, and the role family plays in their success.

As a company that is now run by the second generation, each of the executive committee’s members shared their role in the evolution of Mega. The eldest son, board director Michael Tiu Lim, spoke of the early days of the fishing business and their social work in Zamboanga. Chief Executive Officer Michelle Tiu-Lim Chan focused on growing the business and achieving the number one position with Mega Sardines. Malcolm Tiu Lim, Chief Technical and Innovation Officer, shared the role of fishing innovations in propelling the business forward.

Meanwhile, Marvin Tiu Lim, Chief Growth Officer, talked about new brands, and new acquisitions as the Mega grows into becoming a diversified food conglomerate. And finally Mark Tiu Lim, Chief Spiritual Officer, shared the unique role of faith in the company’s culture and mission.

Providing Affordable Nutrition

Mega Sardines is undoubtedly the best known product of Mega Prime Foods Inc. (MPFI), a subsidiary of Mega Global Corporation, but the company that William Tiu Lim built has businesses across the fishing industry and food production.

Mega Global Corporation is the mother company with interests in all things that involve sardines: deep sea fishing, canning, hatcheries, docking, shipbuilding and petroleum. Meanwhile Mega Prime Foods Inc. focuses on innovation in food processing.

Today, MPFI has a wide portfolio of food products; beyond Mega Sardines it has Mega Tuna, Mega Mackerel and Mega Prime, which cans fruits and vegetables, and Mega Creations, a line of premium bottled fish products. Venturing into other food products, the company also makes Primo grape sparkling juice and recently, the company acquired Jim’s Coffee.

Even with all these innovations and growth into new product lines, sardines remain at the heart of Mega. As the company behind the number one sardines brand in the Philippines, MPFI produces more than a million cans of sardines daily from just one of two of its canning plants in Zamboanga. The company has also built a manufacturing plant in Batangas, which was completed in 2023.

“We started from a fishing company. Then we went into canning. We went into sales distributions and so on and so forth,” William Tiu Lim says matter-of-factly.

For William, the impact his company makes is all about providing affordable nutrition for Filipinos. He continues, saying, “We would like to bring nutrition, food, quality, and very affordable [products] to the Filipino people. So that's the main objective. And that's why we are here with the first and second generations coming in. We would like to show to the consumer that we are here to stay.”

From One Fishing Boat to a Mega Conglomerate

Mega has its origins in a fishing company, Wilmar Fishing, which William Tiu Lim established in 1975. Starting with just one boat, when the other three boats in their fleet of four sank during a storm, they gradually grew the fishing business with hard work and determination.

William recounts, “That's the turning point where I almost gave up because having four vessels and three are sunk, that's a very difficult decision to make. But with God's help and with our people's help, they encouraged me, okay, let's go on and let's try to see what we can do.”

In 1995, the company relocated to Zamboanga, where the majority of the business remains today.

From the start, William had always wanted his children to be part of the business, but he never forced them to join the company. Instead, he focused on providing a good example for them.

“I just act like a model to them that working hard is good, and it is for them,” William says. “It's up to them to follow or not. But [it’s] good, thanks to God, that they followed my directions for them to be here to help the company grow.”

Eventually, all five of William’s children would join the family business. They would do so, given the example William set for them and out of a responsibility to help, to give back.

First to join the company was the eldest son Michael.

“That was the time that we were starting in Zamboanga,” he recalls. “We weren't really asked [to join the company], and I think we felt that it was our responsibility to help… And it's our way of giving back, of course. We were given a good education. We were trained. So it was our way of giving back to the company and helping the company grow.”

A Legacy of Innovation

Looking into the future, William realized that he had to grow his business beyond fishing, into canning.

William recalls, “We can see that if we keep on doing this, there's no future. So what can we do? It's one of those breaks wherein there is no future for us in fishing because we are at [the canning companies] mercy. What can we do? Then we started to study. If we were to go into canning operations and compete with them, what should we do? We cannot just copy them.”

In search of a competitive edge, William came to the conclusion that he could establish a canned sardines brand with superior quality by pursuing innovations in fishing.

“We have to be one step ahead,” he says. “Remember, it's not always pricing. If you're entering the market with the 26th brand, you'll be hit by the top three… They could easily decrease their price so that your entry would be difficult.

“Okay, instead of pricing, let's do quality. And what kind of quality can we get? Improve fishing.”

One of the first innovations Mega pursued was Fish Pump technology and Zero-Degree Chilled Seawater. Instead of hauling the fish from the net, placing them on ice, then in storage, the company’s fishermen could use a fish pump to drop the fish into brine seawater at zero degrees.

“Imagine,” William says with pride, “instead of 28 degrees, it's zero degrees, and the fish is still alive for about two to three minutes. Imagine the quality.”

Since Mega’s early days in its shift from fishing to canning, innovation has driven the company to success. With these successful innovations, William asked, “What more can we do?”

Malcolm Tiu Lim, Chief Technical and Innovation Officer, has continued the legacy of innovation begun by his father William. Since joining the company, his role has been about innovating the product and the processes in making this product.

“There's quite a lot of innovation that my dad has really taught us,” Malcolm says. You have to think outside the box also. Because there's many solutions to a problem. And it's really finding the best way to really solve the problem.”

One of these out-of-the box innovations was adding salt to the ice water used to preserve the catch. Malcolm says, “What we had to do was really innovate, find ways to preserve the fish more. And really what better way to preserve the fish than with salt?”

He explains that ice is made from fresh water and sardines are saltwater fish. “So the way we preserved the fish before was you get the fish, and we put it in ice,” Malcolm says. “But ice has no salt. So we just want to try to bring it back to its natural state.”

This innovation of adding salt to the ice water, William admits, was something of “a crazy idea.” But the extra effort is all about improving quality.

“If we could do [something] for better quality fish,” William says, “then we would do that. Even though it's more expensive to put salt, we would do that because at the end of the journey, it's all about putting quality fish in the can.”

This continued innovation is the competitive edge that William was looking for, and it has allowed Mega Sardines to stand out and quickly rise in a crowded market.

Commenting on the company’s rise, Marylou Tiu Lim says, “It differentiates us from other companies… We can do that because we're the ones doing the catching. We don't buy from others.”

A New Era

In 2023, William Tiu Lim handed over the CEO role of Mega Prime Foods Inc. to his daughter Michelle Tiu Lim-Chan on her 24th year in the company.

For William and Marylou, choosing Michelle as the successor was always a logical choice.

Marylou explains, “From when they were young, Michelle was already very responsible for my other children. She's the second mother, really. She's responsible.”