It is never too late to start your own business.
Take the case of Audrey Regis of Audrey’s Confectioneries.
Audrey has always been entrepreneurial even at a very young age, selling sweets and t- shirts to her classmates to help pay for her tuition and augment her school allowance. But establishing her own business after college never crossed her mind. Instead, she spent 22 years of her life working in the banking industry.
She, however, had a change of heart when she gave birth for the first time in 2011 at the age of 40. She wanted to give more time and attention to her son. And the only way this could be made possible was to set up her own business.
So, Audrey started a commercial enterprise that Cebu is known for: Dried Mangoes.
“Of course, I had my apprehensions. I started late as an entrepreneur and I knew I would no longer have the assurance of a monthly paycheck. Moreover, I am the breadwinner in the family,” she pointed out.
With part of her savings as her capital, she placed her focus on jazzing up the popular Cebu delicacy.
So in 2013, Audrey placed part of her work separation pay from the bank as seed money for her business.
“Mango was a popular pasalubong item in the tourism market at the time. I just thought the famous Cebu delicacy needed a bit of twist to it.” she said. Audrey then created the salted caramel mango because that was a flavor that wasn’t usually seen with mangoes.
She was then making these products at her home kitchen and packing them manually. She purchased boxes for packaging, some equipment and ingredients for her products.
She sold her products through a friend who had a paslalubong store at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport.
Audrey got an overwhelming positive response from buyers with her first few boxes and a lot of queries from well-known retailers such as Rustan’s and SM.
Today, Audrey has a separate production building and kitchen beside their house in Barangay Kasambagan, Cebu City.
At her processing site in Cebu , Audrey installed a horizontal packing machine, a dual heavy-duty burner, blower tunnel, tempering machine, ban sealer, and food processor that produce the delectable confectionaries.
Audrey’s Confectioneries was able to transform the famous Cebu dried mangos into a unique combination of salty sweetness and fruity delight. Today, the company offers delightful flavors such as cashew, classic, pistachio, and chocolate, making the beloved local fruit deliciously more interesting.
At just the right time, the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) came in and augmented her knowledge on business with the Kapatid Mentor Micro Enterprise (KMME) program, learned food safety and market requirements through the One Town One Product (OTOP) program and participated in DTI-organized donestic and international expositions.
Armed with the knowledge, Audrey was able to expand her business and put in additional capital.
From selling in one pasalubong center at the Cebu Domestic Airport, Audrey’s Confectioneries can be found at SM Kultura in North Towers, Megamall, AurA, Makati, MOA, Davao, Puerto Princesa, Cebu and Seaside. She was also able to put her products up on Amazon in the United States.
It would have been smooth sailing for her business, but the COVID19 health crisis happened in 2020. This seriously affected the tourism industry and eventually had a negative impact on Audrey’s Confectioneries, an enterprise that caters largely to tourists.
Along with other MSMEs in the Philippines, Audrey battled the impact of the health crisis by whittling down her employees from 12 to 5 to keep her business afloat.
Ironically, the pandemic also stimulated Audrey’s creative juices. Last year, she introduced a new product under her label –frozen Vegetable Samosa, a prepackaged meal good for brunch, lunch and dinner. This was recieved positively by the buying public, especially the Indian / Pakistani community in Cebu.
Just recently, Audrey introduced the sweet and salty banana chips to her line-up of fast selling products.
Audrey hopes the story on her business journey inspires more people to go for entrepreneurship. From employee to entrepreneur at the age of 42, She truly demonstrates that age is just a number.
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