Cooking up a raw food business

It’s a two-edged kitchen knife.

On one hand, there are food enthusiasts who completely shun eating raw food in Manila due to the high temperature that causes bacteria to multiply rapidly. On the other, you will find health buffs who eat raw food as a way of life.

Aileen de Guzman belongs to the latter category.

She is a raw food instructor and has been a vegetarian for eight years, and she believes that more Filipinos are turning vegetarian or at least leaning toward more healthy food choices.

Attractive idea

This trend makes going into the healthy food business an increasingly attractive idea.

She relates how she learned about healthy cuisine from a nearby farm spa that served gourmet style dishes.

She, however, found the food at the spa difficult to replicate at home so she decided to make her own easy-to-prepare dishes using ingredients that were readily available.

So began her journey toward “raw and live superfoods,” a terminology she uses during her workshops at Sugarleaf, another raw food advocate.

During a wellness cooking demonstration, Aileen showed the audience how you could put together a bunch of greenery with some peanut sauce wrapped with nori, and voila! It turned out to be quite tasty.

Delicious treat

Also a delicious treat is malunggay juice without added sugar. This one seems quite easy to make—two stems malunggay, ½ pineapple, 1 bulb lemon grass—if you happen to own the Matstone multi-purpose juice extractor.

This juicer is also a mincer, grinder, mill, noodle maker, sorbet maker and chopper. It is also one of the products that Aileen promotes.

Her strategy in selling raw food wellness seems to come from the simplicity with which she presents her dishes.

With the use of a few ingredients, one can already come up with tasty treats that Filipinos can enjoy.

Words of wisdom

The following are Aileen’s few pieces of advice to those who are considering to venture into raw food entrepreneurship:

1. Choose which area you’re good at and where your passion is. For example, if you are a nutritionist and you love to interact with people, you may want to create a menu plan for specific groups of people based on raw food specifications.

2. Find your niche market. Create your program according to your target market.

For example, if you want to cater to people who want to lose weight through a healthy lifestyle, understand what they want and need and then provide it.

3. Create a program that would give value to the marketplace. Look for what would appeal to the target market, like raw food menus and tips on how and where to shop.

4. Start small. Start with a small group or store to test the products and the market.

Don’t expect to immediately make a profit. Invest in learning more about your market and take it from there.

5. Leverage your form of marketing. Create a fun, bright, mouth-watering label with your company’s name, website and fun page.

With some time, patience, perseverance, you could have a thriving and flourishing business in the raw food industry.

(Aileen may be reached at www.healthspringph.blogspot.com or [email protected].)