Flor Vendiola and Melchor Galleon – destined to be in business together after Melchor who hails from Sariaya, Quezon joined the CNE in 1998. Flor also hails from Sariaya, Quezon and their paths cross after Melchor decided that Toronto, Canada is the ideal place to be.

Flor Vendiola is a Licensed Medical Technologist and dabbles in business once in a while but quite unsuccessfully. She still practices her profession on a part time basis. She and I have been friends since 1996. I am so happy that she has found a good business and a good business partner.

Melchor was always keen in business – from a young 10 year old kid , Melchor started a small business of renting out komiks, selling yemas and turrones cooked by his aunt in school. When Melchor was in his 3rd year in college as a nursing student, he opened a store in his mother’s house selling pasalubong sweets, longanisang Lukban, puto seko, yema, etc. The store prospered and despite Melchor graduating and becoming a licensed R.N., he never practiced his profession because his calling was doing business.

His business was so prosperous that he opened a second store along the Highway as a stop-over store/restaurant for commuters from Manila to Bicol and back. Melchor plowed back all profits into the business and never looked back. In a span of 8 years, the business expanded to one store at his home, two stores/restaurants on the Highway, a Galeon Bakery and a Galeon Pasalubong in Lucena City.

The business expansion was mainly because Melchor plowed back into the business most of the profits and a younger sister helped him run the business. During that time in 1996, he had a staff of over 60 people manning his business empire!

Business was not always smooth – a disaster, typhoon “Si-sang” destroyed the roads that brought him business- the com-muters from Manila and Bicol. He was forced to close the restaurants, and simply maintained three pasalubong stores.

Being President of the Sariaya Tourism Council, Melchor was invited to participate in the CNE in 1998. He brought with him pasalubong sweets from Quezon Province to the Trade Show in Toronto. He and Flor met at the Mabuhay Festival. Melchor was living with friends and he asked Flor if she could help him find an apartment where he could live. Flor with her kind heart helped him get an apartment and brought him around as a Dancing partner as Melchor was a very good Dance Instructor.

Melchor started cooking at his kitchen yemas, ube and espasol and with Flor’s help started to sell this to different stores like Remely’s, Barrio Fiesta amd Asian Market. At the beginning, Melchor asked for Flor’s help in delivery and so they agreed to do this together as Melchor did not have the resources to continue the growing business. From a start up capital of $500.00, Melchor and Flor slowly established a growing business on Filipino kakanin. Through hard knocks, Melchor and Flor learned to do inventory control, budgeting, etc. They were in business! Using the small home baking equipment, Melchor and Flor slowly acquired some assets to expand the capacity of their business. Profits were plowed back into the business and each year, Melchor would intro-duce new products to their cus-tomers. He added custard cake, bibingka, pianono, polvoron, pastilyas, tikoy etc.

In 2000, Melchor and Flor knew that they had to register the business as FV Foods which is a partnership where they each own 50 per cent of the business. With this, they established a label and with their design, FV Foods started to have a name among the Filipino and Asian stores. The expansion was not funded by any loans – it was financed by profits plowed back into the business.

In 2000, monthly sales were $10,000 a month. Today, the business has grown tenfold from its modest beginnings. They started the business with Melchor as a one-man operation; today they hire a full time staff of 8, 4 part time staff and family volunteers.

December 2000 marked their bold move to rent a small production space of 1,050 sq. m in Scarborough to house their equipment and production supplies. Today, FV Foods is moving to bigger production facility before the end of 2003.

In 2002, FV Foods expanded their product lines to ensaimada, puto, leche flan, cassava cake, kalamay, buko pie and macapuno pie, turrones. All this time, FV Foods was using Flor’s small compact car to deliver the products to stores. In 2000, they acquired a van as delivery vehicle and Flor and Melchor personally deliver the products. Last week, they hired a full time driver to handle deliveries.

Their products reach St. Catherines, Windsor, London and Ajax. Sales volume has reached $50,000 a month! They currently have about 30 outlets all over Ontario. FV Foods joined the Bakers Association of Canada and continues to upgrade the quality of their products.

How did this partnership prosper? Flor and Melchor have agreed to clearly delineate the functions of each partner – Flor handles all office/paper work, billings, invoices, follow up of client calls and also as driver while Melchor handles the kitchen, development of new clients, supervision of the staff and ordering of stocks.

The partners agree that all monies of the business are theirs and every cent is accounted for. The books are open to each other at all times. Each partner receives a salary and each one works in the business “hands on” full time.

They have kept their staff happy because they pay the staff well and the staff enjoys free meals and drinks during the working hours.

What is the secret to their success?

• Determination
• Quality of Products
• Continuously upgrading their product lines, Melchor asks his sister to attend all seminars on baking and he tests the recipes in Toronto before introducing them to the market.

I am very happy that this is one partnership that has done very well. But like I mentioned to them during the interview, they should consider incorporating the business soon as the business has grown enormously through the years. Flor and Melchor, keep on going! Way to go!

Marissa Corpus
There's No Business Like...
Filipino Entrepreneurs: Success Story

“I was at a lost, then. I don’t know anybody here in Toronto and nobody wants to even help me find a temporary place to stay,” reminisced the boyish-looking Melchor in his early days in Canada.

After finally finding a bachelor’s pad and eventually securing his working permit, the determined Melchor accepted all kinds of job that came his way to augment the meager income from his initial job as a cleaner. He was able to get a caregiver’s job because he was Bachelor of Nursing graduate from the Philippines and he showed that he could use his educational background on this endeavor.

His itch for cooking delicacies, however, hounded him no end, thus, in between his free-time as a dancing instructor (DI), his other job, Melchor resumed his first love and start to make his patented Filipino sweetes and other mouth-watering “finger foods” that found its way to his God-given patron named Flor Vendiola.

Also a native of Sariaya, Flor assisted and guided Melchor in his cooking wizardry and other endeavors and after finally convincing themselves that they could make their products part of the Filipinos tables and palates, Mel and Flor created FV FOODS that slowly became Toronto’s biggest name in producing quality Filipino sweets and delicacies.

“Without Flor, I would and could not do it alone. She’s my guardian angel,” the 30-year-old Melchor said and admitted that he named their business FV FOODS, in honor of his partner who handles the distribution and deliveries of their products almost all over the Greater Toronto Area, while he takes care of the preparation and cooking of their sweets and delicacies.

From the small bachelor’s pad where the business started in 1998, FV FOODS is now housed in a bigger place at 127 Mansville, Unit 2, Scarborough, Ontario, MIL 4J3 with Tel. No. 416 759 2000.

Melchor now is a far cry from the picture of a young man lost in a wilderness of the concrete jungle of Toronto six years ago where he was left almost alone and only survived because of his idealistic and positive vision of his future.

“I know I could do it. I was not afraid to face challenges because I was used to hurdle even the hardest problems I encountered in my sad moments and even during my halcyon days where uneventful came in Sariaya (Quezon),” Melchor quipped.

Melchor was talking about how his business in Quezon was razed by fire that left nothing of his investments, coupled by the tremendous effect of the typhoons on his other business that almost knocked him flat on the ground.

The youngest of the three siblings, Melchor fought back and raised his stocks once again to regain his stature in his neighborhood as the “chef with the sweetest hands” in making delicacies, that he brought here in Toronto which is now considered the hottest Filipino products.

Plain luck? Nope. Success is of one’s doing and Melchor Albudin Galen, with a dedicated and unselfish partner in Flor Vendiola, is on a bright road to the patheon of highly successful entrepreneur this part of the globe and raises the Filipino name in the level of the world’s best in sweets and delicacies making.

Jojo Taduran
Philippine Courier, Toronto