Food school takes shape

Jolly University, the annual program designed by food and beverage consumer goods company Fly Ace Corporation to help empower culinary students, recently celebrated its fourth year with a series of educational events for the country’s future F&B industry leaders.

The goal of the program, however, is to become more than just a yearly competition and educational event, said Ralph Rebulanan, associate product manager of Jolly Food Line. Over time, the company hopes to establish a “real” Jolly University.

“We may not have a physical structure, but we want to have continual workshops, classes where people can enroll so they don’t need to go to large universities just to receive this kind of education,” said Rebulanan at the Jolly University Congress held recently in Pasay City.

Jolly University, which this year had as its theme, “It’s more Jolly in the Philippines,” began in 2014 as a cook-off competition held among college students taking up culinary courses. Over the years, however, it has evolved into a more holistic learning program, as Fly Ace continued to add more components: a boot camp held exclusively for contest finalists at the Center for Culinary Arts (CCA) Manila; and the Congress, which Rebulanan described as a TED Talks-inspired public event with speakers discussing the business of food as well as personality development.

“Usually, they think that as culinarians, they’ll end up only in the kitchen—when in fact there are opportunities for them to be entrepreneurs,” Rebulanan said.

“We believe that fostering competitiveness, innovation and entrepreneurship through programs that support youth development is a great investment that leads to positive outcomes both for the next generation and the country,” he added.