BUSINESS BITS

Catering success
Carla Paras-Sison and Michelle Cortes

Two success stories in catering, one now in the big league and the other preferring to remain small, each began simply as a small-time delivery service for packed lunches to employees.
The big one is VS&F Classic Food International, which was recently incorporated as VS&F Frontline Services, Inc. the Quezon City-based caterer is recognized today as among the leaders in the Philippine catering industry and is much sought after weddings and debuts.

But it actually started out in 1987 as a home-based, single proprietorship with an initial capital of only P15,000 and with only four employees. It made deliveries of Filipino favorites like kare-kare and bistek as part of packed lunches to employees in Cubao banks and other establishments in Cubao and Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City.

Since then, however, it has grown at least ten-fold. It now has a 2,000 square-meter office compound in East Fairview, Quezon City, equipped with modern industrial cooking equipment: an 8 feet x 8 feet x 8 walk-in freezer and chiller, ice-making machines, water purifier, flatwork ironer, industrial washing machines and a drier, and laundry streamers.

VS&F now has the capability to cater to functions with as many as 300 to 3,500 guests and serves a wide variety of cuisines, including Japanese, Chinese Lauriat, Spanish, American, Filipino, and European. It does what is known in the industry as “on-the-spot cooking,” or cooking the food right at the venue to assure clients that what is serves is hot and freshly cooked.

“Initially, our sales were just enough to pay the monthly rent of our apartment, water and electricity,” says Josephine C. Abesamis, VS&F’s general manager. Today, however, having reinvested all its revenues into the business over the years, VS&F can serve as many as seven weddings a day with an average of 300 guests per function. It is able to do this because of its investment in modern catering equipment and its having developed a catering staff of over hundred people, including project-based or contractual employees.

Abesamis attributes the longevity and success of VS&F to good costumer like a king and give him or her the highest quality of food and service,” she says. It is for the reason that VS&F gets plenty of referrals from satisfied clients, which Abesamis says has been largely responsible for the company’s continuing growth.

Just like VS&F, MSC Binalot-To-Go went into the catering business initially by delivering food to employees of nearby establishments. From her home in Sta. Cruz, Manila, its proprietor, Marites S. Concepcion, began taking regular food order in 1998 from personnel of the Jose Reyes Memorial Hospital, University of Santo Tomas Hospital, Infant Jesus Hospital, the Department of Health, and the various banks and offices in the vicinity.

To get started in the business, Concepcion invested about P50,000 for a freezer, utensils, chafing dishes, and tables and chairs good for about hundred diners. She used an ordinary two-burner stove to minimize her start-up expenses. Through hard work and prudence, she was bale to recover her investment after about a year.

The specialty of MSC Binalot-To-Go is home-cooked Filipino dishes (lutong bahay, Concepcion likes to call them), which are its year0round best sellers. It also serves Italian and Mediterranean dishes as part of its packed-food menu.

Unlike VS&F, MSC Binalot-To-Go has chosen to remain small, serving a maximum of three events a day. It has only Concepcion herself and her husband Edgardo Jr. as regulars, supported by an on-call catering staff of 10. Even so, it has successfully catered to a few events with over a thousand of guests.

As with most successful caterers, MSC Binalot-To-Go primarily relies on the word of mouth of satisfied clients to promote its catering service. It also distributes flyers every now and then to promote its catering service and food offerings.

The proprietors of both VS&F and MSC Binalot-To-Go emphasize that the secret to successful catering business is not only on costumers but also a reliable and competent catering staff.
Says Abesamis: “You train them and teach them to have discipline. At the same time, however, you must treat them fairly and compassionately.”

Concepcion shares that view and adds: “You have to be there to set a good example. If they are having a bad day, you yourself can’t have a bad day. As the owner, you may have to make up for their mistakes with the client.”

For most caterers, the waiters, cooks and assistant cooks are each paid a daily wage of between P400 and P500. Of course, they usually earn more in tips and gratuities from satisfied clients and guests.

As to the qualifications for becoming a caterer, Concepcion says that formal training in culinary school certainly can help. “To make a go of it, however, you have to be truly interested in the food business,” she says. She had no formal culinary training herself, having learned cooking largely from helping her another out in the kitchen.

Abesamis agrees that culinary training can help but consider on-the-job training that will give you direct exposure to the day-to-day operations of the food business.”


Teens as entrepreneurs
The country’s first inter-high school entrepreneurship competition, “Teenpreneur Challenge,” was conducted recently by the Entrepreneur School of Asia (ESA) in Libis, Quezon City, as part of its advocacy of youth entrepreneurship and social responsibility. It was organized by ESA in cooperation with the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship and the GoNegosyo Movement for the benefit of the Bayan-Anihan Livelihood Program of the Gawad Kalinga (GK) communities.

A total of 25 teams of 10-12 students from 19 highs chools participated in the competition. The teams went through a pre-qualifying round lat January 27, during which they competed in a series of entrepreneurial games and challenges. They then underwent training workshops on planning, brainstorming, marketing, creativity, product positioning, and product improvement, after which each team was given one month to work with a GK community on how to improve the packaging, pricing, and quality of a particular GK product.

The product improvements were tested by an evaluation panel, after which all of the improved products were marketed at the Teenpreneur-Gawad Kalinga Bazaar during the recent GoNegosyo Tourism Expo at the SM Mall of Asia. The winning entrepreneurship teams were honored last March 3, in awarding ceremonies graced by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,.

The team from the Tabernacle of Faith Christian Academy won the first prize for coming up with the most improved-product – a Gawad Kalinga gift box made of papier mache enhanced into a personalized, multifunctional product.

The Xavier School team and the San Beda College team bagged the second and third prizes with an improved peanut butter product and a designer candle product, respectively.
The other participating schools were Assumption College (San Lorenzo), Elizabeth Seton School, Immaculate Conception Academy, Immaculate Heart of Mary, International Christian Academy, Kostka School, Lourdes School of Quezon City, Makati Hope Christian School, Miriam College, O.B. Montessori School, Philippine Science High School, Reedley International School, San Benildo Integrated School, St. Bridget School, St. Paul’s College (Pasig), and St. Paul’s University (Quezon City).

The training workshops for the participating student groups were conducted by lecturers from ESA and its partners from the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. Thirty-three successful entrepreneurs, mostly members of the Association of Filipino Franchisers Inc., volunteered to mentor each high school team as part of the secondary workshop held last Feb. 3.
Vivienne Tan, chairperson of ESA and founding trustee of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship, explains the rationale for the Teenpreneur Challenge: “The youth programs of the GoNegosyo Movement have already reached the young professional and college students but there is still a gap in the high school level. This is what the Teenpreneur program seeks to address. If we can inculcate entrepreneurial values early enough among the next generation, then we will have bigger chances of finally creating a country of entrepreneurs.”

Josel Santos, ESA co-founder and chairperson of the TeenPreneur Challenge, describes the methodology of the Teenpreneur program: “A teenpreneur team has the product, the training, and the mentors. We reach its members social responsibility, innovation, and diskarte (approach). We want them to be resourceful in finding a way to make a particular product sell. In this sense, Teenpreneur is different from the expos of other schools because it’s not a business plan competition. It’s more actual business practice with a social conscience.”