Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Jamal's Lechon

#FOTW: Jamal's Lechon

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Jamal is basically the brainchild of my husband, whose street name is Jamal. Our goal is stand out in the food market and be known for good lechon with a twist. We take pride in being innovative, as we are the first in Cebu to serve lechon stuffed with seafood. We actually have more products which are featured in our Facebook page, but only our bestselling lechon is displayed at Sugbo Mercado. Our customers’ top choice is usually the spicy lechon belly.

Because of our innovative way of business, we’ve actually been recognized by big names around Cebu; people who want to avail of our stuffed lechon. The Osmena’s and the Gullas’ have ordered from us, and we’re very glad that they’ve given interest to our product.

We weren’t originally Jamal’s – we had a shared business with our partner called ReLechonShip. Eventually, we split up and created Jamal’s. My husband came from a family of Lechoneros – both sides – so he’s always wanted to sell lechon. You could say it runs in the blood.

Choosing Sugbo Mercado was such a good decision for us. It has such a wide market range, where people from all walks of life often go to. It’s the best marketing place a business like us could ask for, along with their social media and other advertising strategies lending us a helping hand. With Sugbo Mercado, we’ve become known to the people. As Jamal’s, we’ve only been here for 6 months, and we already have loyal customers.

To be honest, business wasn’t all good from the start. We may have started Jamal’s in January, but we were also planning to close by the end of the month. Sales just wouldn’t boom as expected, and it was bad on marketing expense. But after a little renovation and application of marketing strategies with the staff, we immediately got back up. Since then, the sales have tripled and we’ve been earning more than enough.

We want our lechon to spread nationwide. For now, we’re trying to reach the Manila market and have a branch there. We’ve actually been meeting friends from different places; we travel just to meet them and let them order from us, and a train of orders would follow. We even reached Singapore a month ago. Reconnecting with our old colleagues and friends from the past and the present has helped improve our business that way. Hopefully soon enough, our lechon reaches past the appetites of our own circle and be loved all over the country. 

- Madel Basiga of Jamal's Lechon; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Jamal's Lechon at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #yourWEEKENDfoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Sweet Fix

#FOTW: SWEETFIX 

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Just like it's name, Sweet Fix intends to serve its customers a sweet and satisfying classic that just never goes wrong. It's all about making people enjoy a different kind of ice cream - to try something out of the ordinary and foreign, and deliver it to them for easy access. Our aim is to let them enjoy what we enjoy. I mean, who doesn't love ice cream?

Ice cream is practically perfect for this country; well, most of the time. The concept of Sweet Fix makes ice cream all the more exciting and enticing to the market here, which was why we brought it in. It wasn't that popular in Cebu when we entered, and we knew we needed something unique. It was viral in Youtube at the time, which was where we learned how to make it ourselves.

We knew we wanted to be part of Sugbo Mercado for our brand's exposure. There's a lot of food traffic here, which makes the people stay. When we introduced the brand, people loved it. We've been with Sugbo Mercado for a little more than a year, and even started at their CBP branch. We immediately flourished when we moved to this branch. We're still here after a year, constantly selling our bestsellers - Cookies and Scream, and the Hazelnut Grace, which is actually banana and Nutella together.

The ride's been great, and someday soon, we plan on expanding. Hopefully, we'll get everyone their own sweet fix.

- Abigail Gubalor; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Sweet Fix at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Mr. Benny

#FOTW: MR. BENNY

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Mr. Benny is all about shaved ice cream cultured by the Taiwanese but we upgraded it to make it our own Chinese shaved ice cream. Our bestsellers are chocolate, mango, and matcha. 

We were inspired to start Mr. Benny because we want to share the culture of the Chinese. We noticed that we have a lot of sorbetes ice cream here in the Philippines but not much shaved ice cream. We want many Filipinos to experience our style of shaved ice cream.

         We chose Sugbo Mercado specifically because its market has so much potential in it. People of all ages always visit Sugbo Mercado. I also think that this dessert that we offer can become popular through the weekend food market. We have been with Sugbo Mercado for only 4 months and so far there have been good times and bad times. I believe that success is maybe seasonal because there are certain events here in Cebu and the weather is always changing.

As for the future of Mr. Benny, I have many plans.Other than opening in SM Seaside, maybe we will expand our branches. We might put some in Davao and maybe some in Mandaue.

- Patrick del Rosario of Mr. Benny; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Mr. Benny at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Rainbow Smoothies

#FOTW: RAINBOW SMOOTHIES

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Rainbow Smoothies contain more than 10 mixed fruits in each cup. When customers see our product, they really get what they see. We have different fruits like dragonfruit, apples, melons, watermelons, grapes, and a lot more. We call it Rainbow Smoothies because it looks colorful. 

We opened the store just about a month ago. We went to Thailand early March where we got inspired by their concept of an all-natural multiple fruit shake. We saw a lot of customers come to their store which meant a lot of people like fruits. We ourselves like fruits a lot, and since people at present prefer to be healthier than usual, we decided to open up here; no one had the same concept in Sugbo Mercado, or even in Cebu. We tried applying to get in Sugbo Mercado, and fortunately, we got in. 

Sugbo Mercado was the first place that popped into our minds when we were thinking of a place to put up our business. It’s a little expensive compared to other locations, yes, but the population reach is more important for us. If we pay less for rent but end up having a handful of customers, then we would be at a loss. Unlike in Sugbo Mercado, that even if we spend a lot, we’re guaranteed a lot of customers and our capital goes back to us. 

We’re definitely planning to add more products to our menu someday. We discovered other food concepts in Thailand as well, like mixing kiwi and ginger and other kinds of flavors in a cup. Just as long as it’s all-natural and healthy, we’re considering all the options we can find.

We’re on our fifth week and so far, it’s been good. All our stocks are sold out by the end of the day, and that’s enough to cover a lot of our expenses. We want to open in other branches, and even a lot of our friends are interested in franchising our brand. Although I’m not considering it now because it’s too early, I’m up for planning and opening other branches later on in the future. 

- Mary Rose Aldemita and Cecile Mayot of Rainbow Smoothies; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Rainbow Smoothies at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: CHEESECAKE STORY

#FOTW: CHEESECAKE STORY

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Cheesecake Story is, like it’s name, all about cheesecake. It’s concentrating more on being unique, and concentrating on the flavor itself. I noticed that there are a lot of desserts right now that just concentrate on being sweet. I, on the other hand, would like to let people taste different levels of sweetness. 

The bestsellers are Banana Gone Nuts and Albuquerque, most probably because the blend of flavors is sort of like a match made in heaven. Cheesecake is sweet, and I pair it with dark chocolate, so it’s not as sweet as others. Banana Gone Nuts contains walnuts, caramel, and bananas. Albuquerque just contains almonds, so it’s a good mash of flavors, because the almond gives the crunch to the frozen cheesecake. In some way, it sort of becomes ice cream because it melts in your mouth.

Banana Gone Nuts

You know one of those points in your life where you look down at yourself and you’re just looking for your purpose? I was at that point. I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, I’m not going anywhere.” Then suddenly, it just came to me. I saw a video of  Sugbo Mercado place a year ago, and I’ve always wanted to try it out, but I wasn’t given any opportunity back then since there were a lot of issues. This – now – is the right time. When I came in Sugbo Mercado, they were very encouraging to push me to enter The Market as well. It hasn’t been smooth sailing, but I can say that it was meant to happen, because everything is already laid out.

Sugbo Mercado is almost all about food, and foodies come here all the time. Sugbo Mercado concentrates on the uniqueness of food. It has a good market, where I can serve my not-so-ordinary cheesecakes. People usually take photos of their food before eating them, which makes this market more advantageous for my brand’s marketing.

I actually just hit a month recently here in Sugbo Mercado. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from people which is what’s important to me right now. Business doesn’t boom as soon as you start; it often has slow progress. Right now, it’s good enough. 

I haven’t thought much about the future since I’m concentrating on the now. To be honest, I tend to freak out when thinking about it so try to avoid it. What I do is I take it one day at a time. Sugbo Mercado is opening The Market soon, and they’ve offered me a stall there. I’m thinking about that now, whether I should go for it or not. It’s business, so there’s a lot of risks.

- Kristine Cruz, owner of Cheesecake Story; Our Foodtrepreneur of The Week. Visit Cheesecake Story at Sugbo Mercado, Garden Bloc of IT Park. We are open every Thursdays-Sundays 5pm-1am. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket!

Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week: Gatsa-a

 #FOTW: Gatsa-a

Every week, Sugbo Mercado introduces fresh brands that are sure to take a place in your appetites. This is a compilation of our foodtrepreneurs, their stories, and their plans for the future.

Gatsa-a derived as “gatas at tsa-a” offers a great taste of tea combined to milk and fruit flavors with add-ons such as pearls, pudding, nata de coco and more! Our brand’s bestsellers are: Wintermelon, Okinawa, Hokkaido, Matcha and Cookies & Cream.  We also offer Chinese products such as siomai and ngohiong. 

Wintermelon

The whole concept of our business was out-of-curiosity. Personally, I’m not a fan neither of tea nor milk but I love mixing and stuffing. Meanwhile, my business partner, Chimneeluz loves tea but not a fan of milk. But hey, we are both food lovers. Being best of friends since college and had our own life, we didn’t miss out chatting and sharing desires; Thus, our curiosity and commonality jive got us into trying Milk Tea and Fruit Tea. Plus the fact that it’s a big hit to millennial based on research, so we gave it a try. 

Matcha

We started last November 2017 and we are on our 6^th month this May! Indeed Sugbo Mercado gave us the best avenue to promote and create a name to the public with our exposure at Sugbo Mercado. We have always wanted to have a one-stop shop for our group of friends and customers to saddle and bond in a comfortable place to stay and chat. 

And now, we’ve drafted plans for the next few months and hopefully, we could embark on a stable shop to settle down with our products as Sugbo Mercado’s advocacy is to incubate Cebu’s Foodtrepreneurs to grow them into best local brands.

Also, we had the best of time and we’re grateful to the people we are surrounded with. Business associates were so warm and friendly that we’ll surely be missing out if we move out.

-Joyce  Anne Ruma and Chimneeluz Remonde, owners of Gatsa-a; Our Foodtrepreneur of the Week.

Visit Gatsa-a at Sugbo Mercado. We are open every Thursday to Sunday, from 5PM until 1AM. See you there at #YOURweekendFoodmarket.