The bustling wet market in Iraya, Guinobatan, Albay, is more than a platform for the famed “longganisa” (native sausage). It is a display of food and heritage for those who appreciate the sausage’s distinct taste and the means of livelihood for its small stallholders.

The Longganisa de Guinobatan, the town’s handmade staple, requires no price haggling unlike in other markets where bargaining is the norm. Small in size and consisting of ground lean pork, fat, sugar, salt, and pepper, it comes in an array of flavorful varieties but always with a sharp hint of garlic that locals like to balance with achara (pickled papaya).  And its consumers also partake of history going back to Spanish colonial times.

The local government has chosen the Longganisa de Guinobatan as its main culinary product under the One Town, One Product initiative. It serves to draw tourists, thus helping sustain the livelihood of its producers and sellers.

Residents and vendors celebrate the Longganisa Festival every August, a two-week-long event aimed at promoting Guinobatan’s communal spirit and culinary gifts. Both domestic and foreign visitors flock to the town to enjoy the festival, which is now on its 12th year.

“We’ve seen growth in the economy due to the increase in demand for livestock and local longganisa,” said Mayor Ann Ongjoco.

Part of the activities is the Culinaria, a cooking competition in which participants explore innovative styles of cooking the sausage to produce such dishes as Bicol Express Longganisa and Longganisa Shanghai.

“There’s a lot of business opportunities offered to the contestants, which help their stalls prosper in the long run,” Ongjoco said.

This year, the organizers are reviving the traditional boodle fight on the festival’s seventh day. As many as 10,000 sausages will be laid out on a long table for the feast outside the municipal hall.

June Odoño, a third-generation stall owner, owes the recipe of his Longganisa de Guinobatan to his grandmother. He said he also inherited the stall from his grandmother when he was still in grade school 30 years ago, and its earnings now serve to support his family and workers.

Ericka Llanderal, 20, works at a five-year-old longganisa stall on the sidewalk of the wet market to save for college. She has been employed for only two weeks and “earns enough,” she said.

Selling about 10 kilos of Longganisa de Guinobatan per day, and with competitors everywhere, it’s not uncommon for vendors like Llanderal to face a slump in sales due to the increase in the price of pork.

One kilo of the product costs from ₱500 to ₱800, depending on the cut of meat used.

At one point, Odoño was producing up to 100 kilos, or the equivalent of two pigs, weekly. But with the surge in pork prices, his production has been cut in half.

Another stall owner, Lea Morada, is in the same situation. She said constant changes in the price of the product are driving away regular customers.

“We tend to lose customers whenever pork prices rise. They’re caught off guard by the sudden increase,” said Morada, a mother of two.

She now takes her business online, where most of her orders makes about ₱4,000 per day, or a production of 5 kilos.

About 100 vendors whose daily profits depend on livestock prices are the most vulnerable to dwindling demand and inflation. This makes it difficult for them to earn on slow days when tourist activities are scarce. Odoño claimed that “most of our customers are tourists.”

Still, the Longganisa Festival continues to thrive—and provides a boost to Guinobatan’s economy and the local vendors’ welfare—even if it may seem like just another food fair.

“This is something we take pride in: At any given time, when people visit Guinobatan, they can always look for something to indulge in,” Mayor Ongjoco said.