DAGUPAN CITY – Jarold's Super Dessert, the ube-made products and other delicacies business here of a family, has thrived on product innovation and online selling amid the pandemic.
Mischael Aquino, 29, a mother of two, said she and her husband John Paul introduced ‘puto-pao-all-in’, an addition to their ube halaya business and sold it online with the help of their resellers during the lockdown.
“We sold it before at PHP35 per styro(foam) and it was a hit since we were the only one selling puto-pao (native rice cake stuffed with meat) topped with our very own ube halaya, cheese, and salted egg,” she said in an interview Tuesday.
Aquino said they sold 100 to 150 sets of puto-pao daily during the lockdown and their customers were from the different parts of Pangasinan.
The family’s business was established in 2018 but it took off in 2019 with the help of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), and the city government of Dagupan, she added.
“DTI provided us with training on how to do business. I was a graduate of DTI’s Kapatid Mentor Me Program batch 4. The DOST helped us with improving our products and innovating new products as well as with the labeling, while the city government along with DTI sent us to exhibits to showcase our products,” Aquino said.
She said ube halaya has been the business of her husband’s family since 1995. Her husband took interest in pursuing it after his father died.
“We continued the business in 2017 and became involved with the training of DTI. Later on, we were able to introduce other products aside from the ube halaya, and the latest was the ‘puto-pao-all-in’,” she added.
Aquino said her husband resigned last year from being a barangay nurse to focus on their business.
“Our business provided for our needs now. My husband and I, together with our 10-year-old (son), and sometimes, we hire one of our neighbors to help us in our production. But mostly it is just us working together,” she added.
Jarold's Super Dessert offers ube halaya, pichi-pichi, yema spread, ube jam, ube bar, maja, and their puto-pao-all-in, among others.
Its products are exhibited at the SM Center Dagupan until Oct.10 as part of the “Go Local, Buy Local” campaign of the city government. (PNA)