Roberto Infante

Midas-Mathilde Marketing

Buhi, Camarines Sur

Roberto Infante worked as a chemist for a pharmaceutical company in Dubai for a year. Learning a few tricks of the trade, he returned home in 2018 to start his own business.

To have his own company is Roberto’s lifelong goal. After he graduated and obtained his license as a chemist, he worked abroad to learn through experience and save enough to start his own business in the Philippines.

Roberto started Midas-Mathilde Marketing with a handful of personally formulated household cleaning products which he offered to resellers. “Dahil sa resellers, nakarating yung mga produkto sa ibang probinsya and eventually nagkaroon na ng distribution outlets sa Metro Manila, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga at Bulacan,” he shared.

Roberto eventually expanded his product line to include personal care products, pet care products, and car cleaning products. He was preparing for his Food and Drug Administration (FDA) compliance certificate when the community quarantine was imposed, and he stopped all his business activities. “I was renovating my manufacturing plant in Iriga City and preparing it for the FDA inspection. Unfortunately, Covid-19 happened. My budget for the FDA license went to paying my employees’ salaries during the quarantine.” he recalled.

Midas-Mathilde Marketing resumed operations after a month. “Our household cleaning products were considered essential commodities. Our corporate clients started contacting us to replenish their stocks and to schedule deliveries so we had to go back to business,” Roberto explained.

Roberto chanced upon the Bayanihan CARES program on Facebook. “I knew I needed additional funds to sustain my operations. Most of my collections due during the quarantine period remained uncollected and I’m slowly using up my savings,” he said.

With the Bayanihan CARES loan Roberto was able to replenish his depleted FDA renovation fund and pay his employees their 13^th month pay.

“Mahalaga din talaga ang pagiging masinop sa negosyo. It pays to be ready for any eventuality. Now I am ready to expand our product distribution to more provinces and established a satellite production site in Cavite. Little by little we will move forward.”

Posted February 23, 2021