MANAOAG, Pangasinan – The owners of an ice cream shop in this town had to introduce new flavors – such as sampaguita and carrots – and change their marketing strategy to cope with the effects of the pandemic.
Couple Reynante and Delma Sampaga opened their Reydel Ice Cream shop in Barangay Baritao here back in 1995 and it has remained in business.
Reynante used to be an ice cream pushcart vendor in Zambales and he used this experience to put up his own ice cream store.
“Noong nagpunta sa amin si Congressman Toff (Christopher de Venecia), nag-suggest siya na gawin din namin ‘yong sampaguita flavor. Pero dati na nag-o-offer kami ng malunggay flavor. Saka neto lang, ‘yong carrot flavor (When Congressman Toff visited us, he suggested that we make sampaguita flavor ice cream. But we were already offering malunggay flavor and just recently we added the carrot flavor),” Delma said in an interview on Friday.
She said they needed to modify even their selling strategy for their 25-year-old business to survive the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) health crisis.
“Nagsimula kaming magtinda online at nilagay namin sa tub yong aming ice cream. Kung hindi namin yon ginawa ay hindi kami makakabenta talaga at naging maganda naman ang epekto. Naging maganda ang sales namin at may mga resellers din kami (We started selling online and we put our ice cream products in tubs. If we did not do that, we would not have been able to sell our ice cream. The result has been good. Our sales bounced back and we have resellers now),” Delma said.
Reydel Ice Cream used to sell its products the traditional way, with carts being pushed all over town, but when the pandemic struck, lockdowns prevented this.
“Nagbebenta pa din kami nung nasa cart sa mga birthdays or okasyon (We still sell our ice cream in carts during birthdays or other occasions),” she said.
Their flavors also include cheesy buko, macapuno, and cookies and cream, with prices ranging from PHP30 to PHP200. They charge PHP800 for their seven-liter ice cream in cart.
Sampaga said they are grateful as their business has helped them send their children to college and support six families in their community.
The couple’s eldest son is now a seafarer while their daughter is an accountancy graduate
Source: Philippines News Agency