Uyong Phee Producer Company Limited

We operate out of Heingang Makha Leikai at Nepram Babita Devi’s place. We are a producer company, which means we are really a group of local people working together. In this part of Imphal, life moves a bit slower than in the city. We spend most of our time dealing with traditional products and coordinating with the people who actually make them. Our office is just a simple room where we meet and talk. There’s usually a pot of tea on the stove and some samples of our work spread out on the table. We don’t have a formal dress code or anything like that. People just come in their everyday clothes and we get to work. Sometimes we spend hours just discussing the quality of a single batch of goods. It’s not about being fast; it’s about doing things the way they’ve always been done. We have to handle a lot of the boring business stuff too, like filing papers and keeping accounts, which none of us really enjoy. But we do it because it helps the producers get their fair share. It’s a community-based thing more than a corporate one. We’ve had our share of struggles, especially when materials are hard to find or the weather stops us from traveling. We just take it as it comes. We are just a bunch of locals trying to keep our traditions alive and helpful to everyone involved in the process.