At the Go Negosyo BalikBayan Summit, Prudencio “Pruds” Garcia didn’t just share a success story—he re-ignited a narrative that refuses to fade.
“Any story that inspires everyone is worth telling over and over again,” the Mekeni Food Corp. president told a packed hall of returning overseas Filipinos, many of whom were searching for their own reboot back home.
If anyone knew how that felt, it was Garcia. Long before he helmed a global food brand, he was an OFW in Saudi Arabia, chasing stability the same way he once sold ice candy and eggs around Porac at age six.
Entrepreneurship wasn’t a career choice—it was muscle memory. When he returned in 1993 at his father Felix’s urging, Mekeni was still a modest backyard operation, and Pampanga was still recovering from Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption.
Then came the trials. Foot-and-mouth disease gutted the livestock industry. The Asian financial crisis tightened the noose. Cash flow was a constant battle. At one painfully honest moment, Pruds suggested shutting everything down. But Felix Garcia delivered the line that would anchor Mekeni’s culture for decades: Never forget your why—and forget your excuses. With 40 employees and their families depending on them, surrender wasn’t on the menu.
Fueled by that conviction, the Garcia brothers rebuilt, reinvented, and rallied their growing team. “Our father believed in helping ordinary people perform extraordinarily,” Garcia said. It became a leadership playbook grounded not in boardroom jargon but in trust—the belief that the best ideas often come from people closest to the work.
Still, challenges kept coming. African swine fever in 2019 forced Mekeni to halt its planned U.S. expansion. Instead of sulking, the company pivoted, creating the Bayani line—siomai, kikiam, fish balls—products tailor-made for micro-resellers and neighborhood vendors.
And when the pandemic froze mobility, Mekeni turned lockdown into lift-off by introducing Bayani abroad, feeding the homesickness of Filipinos craving street-food comfort.
“The pandemic actually prepared us for something big,” Garcia reflected.
Today, Mekeni employs more than 1,000 people and continues its march into global markets, guided by innovation and consumer insight. Garcia wrapped his talk with a mnemonic anchored on his name—PRUDS: Purpose, Resilience, Uplift, Discipline, and Staying focused. For balikbayans dreaming of building anew, it was more than advice—it was a blueprint forged in grit, crisis, and unwavering purpose.
