If you are looking into the opportunity of starting a food business, starting with a franchise business is an option specially if it would be your first time to explore the entrepreneurship world.

Filipino Franchise Show 2010

Yesterday, I got to visit the 9th Filipino Franchise Show 2010 at the World Trade Center in Pasay where more than half of the exhibitors are from the food franchise businesses.

Regular entrance ticket costs P100 per person while students can get in for P50 and senior citizen at P80. I got my free ticket care of the organizer – Association of Filipino Franchisers Inc. (AFFI). Check their website at http://www.affi.com.ph/ and event website http://www.franchiseshowphilippines.com/

Franchise Finds

Attention grabbing structures are the usual big booths from big brands like Mang Inasal, Julie’s Bakeshop, Binalot, and Eng Bee Tin whose mooncakes would be a hit in the next few days due to the upcoming Chinese Mooncake Festival.

Mang Inasal, Julie's Bakeshop, Binalot, and Eng Bee Tin

However, you would observe new brands as well such as Buko House, Mozarella Stick, Sankalan, Wrap A Lumpia, Sisig in the City, and food carts by JC Franchising. (See first photo).

On Ice Scrambles

Ice Scrambles Food Carts

As expected, the ice scrambles craze proliferated in the franchise show as I found at least four ice scramble franchise offerings including Ice Cramble “The Original Ice Crumble“, Scramboi Ice Scrambles, Scramble King, and Chillax Ice Scramble.

I like the hip sound of Chillax the most. 🙂 However, Scramble King rides on the name recall of the monosyllabic “king.” I think Scramboi could have settled with “Scramboy” instead, investing on the common Filipino street name.

I didn’t find the Manila Scrambles cart I see in most malls, however.

The Ice Scrambles food cart idea is currently taking the low-cost food franchise by storm primarily because of its low cost and comparatively simple operations involved in preparing the product. Time would say if this would only be a fad or if the ice scrambles industry would stay for good.

Innovative Names

RBX (Rice in a Box) and Taxi Cab

Moving on, there are also food businesses with innovative names like RBX or Rice in a Box and Tapsi Cab. The former seem to be moving from the usual cart type to kiosk with their dine-in showcase at the franchise fair. The latter reminds us of a similar sounding pizza chain. 🙂

Potato Loops

AFFI Seminars

Lastly, I found this interesting-looking potato product that looks peculiar from our regular French fries. It’s fried but swirled in a stick and called “Potato Loops.” I wasn’t able to taste one but the aesthetics is enough to possibly pique a passers-by’s interest giving it the ‘curious-purchase’ advantage. I think it’s innovative and have a high-market potential in the near future given that it tastes good enough for a snack.

Philippines Franchisees and Franchisors

You still have today and tomorrow to visit the 9th Filipino Franchise Show 2010 at the World Trade Center in Pasay. Tel:(02) 506-8883, 0917-518-AFFI, 347-0153, 534-1134. Email info@tradenetevents@gmail.com or affi.secretariat_raffy@yahoo.com. A ride away from SM Mall of Asia, it opens 11am and closes 7pm.

Here in the Philippines, the Chinese community is usually in a festive mood even a week before the Chinese Mooncake Festival. But this year, I hardly saw mooncake in our dining table.

October 3 passed just like any usual Saturday.

Aside from the given economic crunch, the gloomy atmosphere is part of the recovery phase from the recent typhoon Ondoy.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop this food blog from sharing a bite from the Chinese’s Mooncake Festival culture.

The Mooncake Festival, also referred to as the Mid-Autumn Festival, marks the end of a good harvest season for the farmers.

Regarded as a legal holiday by the Chinese, it is annually held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. This year, it fell on an early October on our local calendar.

Wikipedia.org describes it as

“…a date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar“

The festivity references to the ‘moon’ in the famous Chinese pastry in festivals – the ‘Mooncake‘. The Chinese term is pronounced as “yuèbÄ­ng” with a literal English translation of “Moon biscuit“. Generally about the size of a palm and half way thick. Dense, heavy and regularly rounded. Sweet in taste and at about Php 60 a piece, fillings vary from ordinary mongo to the premium lotus seed paste. It’s never a real mooncake without the egg yolk inside symbolizing the full moon.

Last Year’s Mooncake Festival

Last year, we ate out at a Chinese restaurant and played the traditional Mooncake Festival Dice Game after meal. Yes, at the restaurant; they allowed us. 🙂

The Mooncake Festival Dice Game is characterized by a group of people surrounding a round table throwing 6 dice in a glass bowl. The players take turns. Each numeric and die-color combination results has corresponding values with all-four dice (all six dice has the mark of four red dots in each) as the highest.

Prizes are traditionally mooncakes and hopia while more affluent families give away bigger prizes or ampao (cash in red envelopes).

I remember during that time last year, it was the height of the the melamine issue. Despite that, we still used hopia. We just made sure we got it from a credible melamine-free source.

* Mooncake image and some info sourced from Wikipedia.

All our relatives enjoyed the Chinese Mooncake Festival. Hopefully, we could have a repeat of that next year.