Men On A Mission

As Jewelmer unveils the next chapter of its storied legacy, cofounders Jacques Branellec and Manuel Cojuangco look back on the past 40 years and reflect on a calling far greater than what they had imagined, writes MJ Jose

- MJ Jose

The story of Jewelmer began in 1979, when a Filipino entrepreneur and a French pearl farmer sat down for a chat. Group Chairman Manuel Cojuangco owes this meeting to “an invisible beneficent hand,” for he and President and CEO Jacques Branellec did not run in the same social circles at the time. But as fate would have it, their paths crossed through a chance encounter, when Cojuangco’s brother asked him to meet with Branellec. The initial goal was to find a way to cease dependence on harvesting natural oysters by finding a way to breed their own through research and biotechnology. At the time, others around the world were attempting to do the same— there were a few close calls, but no one had succeeded. Jewelmer would be the first in the pearling industry to find a winning formula.

Oyster breeding is just the tip of the iceberg. All over the world, the company is held in high esteem as the purveyor of the finest golden South Sea pearls, which are produced by the gold-lipped Pinctada maxima oysters bred in Jewelmer’s sustainable eco pearl farms in Palawan. A meeting with a jeweller—another fortuitous event, according to Cojuangco—inspired the gentlemen to expand the business by utilising their raw materials to create their own pieces. “We realised that we had an opportunity to create unique designs that may not yet exist, allowing us to dictate trends in the jewellery industry,” says Branellec. “It was imperative that we made a strong impact, not just because we were establishing a brand, but because we had the opportunity to show the world that the Philippines had the potential to become an able player in the luxury market.”