A hot-and-cold scoop of brewing success

All stories have a beginning. And for this up-and-coming food business, it all started with a sort of a “why not?” experiment.

- JASPER EMMANUEL ARCALAS

It was at the tail end of the birthday celebration of Jude’s daughter at a buffet when his pal, Charlie, made a dessert of sorts.

Charlie scooped up some layers of soybean curd, locally known as taho. Added some arnibal or sugar syrup and the usual sago.

Next thing, he did the unimaginable. He asked for a few scoops of ube ice cream to be topped on his taho mix. It did not stop there. Charlie added some macapuno from the halo-halo section.

Voilà! An affogato of its own, just how Charlie describes it. Only that it was reversed: the hot component is added first before the cold one.

Charlie held up his dessert concoction, went to his pals, and told them with a grin: Bakit hindi?

Prologue: From balling to serving

It was March 1 when Charlie made taho with ice cream... and toppings. Weeks before that, Charlie, Jude and their gang have been wanting to put up a business. The only problem was, what type of business to invest in?

But Charlie’s dessert innovation paved the way for PHIBEsome Food Inc.’s business venture: taho with ice cream.

PHIBEsome traces its roots in the basketball rivalry among seven people: Jude Espinas, Charlie Hernandez, Paulo Perez, John Angelo Hernandez, Mico Inobaya, Edgar Palacio and Christian Bulalaque.

They used to play basketball against each other. Eventually, as they grew old, got jobs and had families, things changed. They became teammates.

They formed Team Bluey basketball, an organization envisioned to provide a platform to aspiring young Filipino ballers to compete at higher stakes. Filipino youth who do not have the opportunity yet to play in bigger leagues.

But joining leagues comes at a cost. To make the team sustainable, they thought of forming a business that would provide a stable source of income, not just for the team but also for themselves.