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Nana Rosa’s cornick: pride of the north

PAOAY, Ilocos Norte (Mar. 28) — It all started from a small stall of binatog (boiled sweetened corn) to a big time family cornick business.

Mrs. Rosalina B. Abrojena, 60 years old, better known as Nana Rosa, is the woman behind the famous chichacorn snack, Nana Rosa’s Cornick.

Nana Rosa and her family reside at Brgy. Salbang, Paoay, Ilocos Norte. They supply cornick to different provinces outside Ilocos Norte such as Ilocos Sur, Pangasinan, Baguio City and Metro Manila – the product’s fame spreads even outside the country.

Nana Rosa’s husband, a farmer, grows corn.

Nana Rosa’s “corny” story began when she thought of starting a business by cooking corn into binatog. In 1990, she started selling these in the local market, usually staying there the whole day to sell. Still, income was too meager to support her family. Two years later, her daughter Mary thought of improving their ways of cooking corn from the simple binatog to golden brown crispy cornick.

Because there are other cornick producers in their neighborhood, they set an objective — to make their products carry a distinct quality to stand out. Little by little, with their zeal and hard work, the business began to grow as the product became more and more popular.

From only three workers, their workforce increased to fifteen. Production is based on the regular supply they sell in the local market, including orders.

Initially, Nana Rosa and her daughter had only one flavor to offer, the classic garlic flavor. Taking into mind the different preferences of their growing number of consumers, Nana Rosa and her family came out with different flavors such as sweet, spicy, cheese, barbecue and sweet and spicy.

Before, they had to mix the flavors manually using wooden ladles. Later on, to ensure better products, they purchased a mixer to combine the different mouth watering flavors.

Due to heavy demands of Nana Rosa’s Cornick, they hired additional workers and bought more corn from other farmers.

Consequently, the family had to build an annex for the additional 15 large pans to supply the growing demand.

The success of Nana Rosa’s Cornick is uncontestable, as a proof, the business received recognitions from the Small and Medium Enterprises Authority (SME) for contributing to the advancement of SME through its significant growth and improvement in business performance under the National SME Development Agenda.

With these achievements that she and her family have attained, Nana Rosa reveals their “secret”.

“Simple lang ti sikreto mi, banbantayan mi dagiti paraluto mi tapno masigurado ken mamentenar ti kinamayat ti produkto mi” (Our secret is simple, we supervise our workers so that we can maintain the quality of our product.)

For 15 years, Nana Rosa’s Cornick has been out in the market, and they envision selling their product internationally. As of now Nana Rosa’s Cornick is in popular demand among balikbayans from Hawaii and the mainland.

Nana Rosa’s “corny” story wasn’t that “corny” after all. # Pearly Ann F. Ancheta/MMSU intern

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