BUSINESS BITS

A little make-up
KATRINA TAN

The Philippine food industry is highly competitive, with currently over 84, 125 food-related establishments vying for the consumer’s peso. It is therefore very important to make one’s food products look as good and as appetizing as possible to the consumer – a creative task that has given rise to a thriving industry called food styling.

In practice, food stylists are commissioned by food manufacturers and food service establishments to do photographic or cinematic work on their products. They coordinate with the client to come up with the image desired for a particular food item, organize the pictorial, and do the actual food preparation and arrangement.

Says food stylist Pixie Sevilla-Santos: “Food styling is much in demand these days because of the growth of the various communication and advertising media that require it.” Indeed, among the evergrowing number of commercial activities today that require food styling services are TV commercials and shows, supermarket and store displays, trade shows, magazines, books, films, and theater productions.

Since food styling is relatively new in the Philippines, however, a lot of people are not aware of precisely what it is and what its practitioners actually do. “They think that if you know how to cook, you’d be able to style a food,” Sevilla-Santos says. “That’s not true at all. Preparing food to be photographed is an entirely different process from preparing food to be eaten.”

Sevilla-Santos learned the food styling craft at the Culinary Institute of America-Greystone in Napa Valley, California, having taken the subject as an elective when she took the institute’s baking and pastry arts program. Upon graduation, she got exposure in the trade by assisting American food photographer Teri Sandison in doing food stylist projects for different vineyards, food catalogues, and cookbooks.

But one doesn’t necessarily need to have formal food styling training to excel in the craft. In the particular case of Him Uy De Baron, part owner of Chef’s Cuisine, a food styling and consultancy group based in Ortigas, it was hands-on training that led to his becoming a food stylist. He had already been working as a freelance chef and consultant for several years when sometime in October 2005, a client of his asked him to develop a new concept for her ongoing catering service.

“I got this text message if I would be available for a food shoot for ABS-CBN – it was from someone who had been referred to me,” Uy De Baron recalls. “Well, I thought that if ABS-CBN needed an actor, they wouldn’t just text people – they would go to a talent agency. But you see, chefs don’t have the luxury of having a talent manager or an agency. That’s why after getting that message I came up with a concept for doing the food styling business: instead of providing a food menu, why not provide a menu for chefs?”

That idea grew into Chef’s Cuisine, a one-stop culinary shop that offers food styling, food consultancy, food research and development, catering, and food photography. In December 2005, Uy De Baron invested about P4 million into the venture – most of it going into culinary equipment and utensils – and hired nine employees.

Uy De Baron says that business has been good. Last February alone, he says, Chef’s Cuisine had gross revenues of P700,000. At the rate the business is going, he expects to fully recover his investment in about two years’ time.

But Uy De Baron says that doing the food styling is not all that easy. “Sometimes you have to do everything it takes to satisfy a customer, even if it’s no longer part of the agreement,” he says. “This is why you have to be very patient and to remain innovative in this business, always trying new things to improve your food quality and service and to keep your clients happy.”

To avoid having problems with clients, Sevilla-Santos says, stylist need to have a written contract specifying the professional fee and giving the specific job description and duties, then secure a down payment before starting a food styling assignment. She explains: “Food styling materials are bought per project and aren’t that expensive, so your fee ill actually depend on the difficulty of the effects that you need to put into the food. In my case, I don’t have much overhead expense because I have only one assistant, and I can do simple projects all by myself.

Sevilla-Santos says that she gets regular referrals from previous clients and photographers, and that she got the return of her investment in the business almost immediately. But food styling is not all she does: “Since food styling is on a per project basis, I decided to have a more regular source of income. I opened a line of Forget Me Not specialty cake stores at Libis and New Manila in Quezon City and at Greenhills in San Juan.” On top of that, she also conducts monthly food styling classes together with a professional food photographer.