Dr. Conchita L. Manabat l June 21, 2023 l Business Mirror
“I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside…”
“Greatest Love of All,”—Whitney Houston
HAVING no children and single since birth, I borrowed the children of my brothers and sisters on weekends and holidays. They say I am their second mother. One of them is the youngest among my dozen nieces and nephews. As the youngest, Rudolf Vincent (RV) got a lot of leeway from me like my youngest sister, both of whom I was told I spoiled.
RV is well educated. He studied at College of Saint Benilde, Dela Salle University and he obtained his post graduate degree in food, wine and cheese studies from Boston University. A firm believer in continuing education, he pursued extensive pastry and culinary education to include Perfecting French Patisserie Diploma from the Ecole Nationale Suoerieure de Patisserie in France, cake decorating courses at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City and the French Pastry School in Chicago, and a master Chocolatier Program from the Chocolate Academy in Belgium. He earned specialty certificates in Asian cuisine from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea.
His career started as a faculty member at College of St. Benilde after graduation from the same school. After finishing his Boston University program, he later set up a boutique culinary school in their kitchen in Binan City. With 6 initial enrollees on a weekend, he learned the ropes of being on his own. It was a one-man operation—from campaigning for students, cleaning the kitchen, preparing everything, teaching, and cleaning after the sessions. He used electronic medium to market his boutique school. He visited me on weekends to share his experience and I encouraged him to move on. He had his dreams and at times, I had to remind him of the realities of life and that developing a business is not a walk in the park.
The weekend sessions with increasing students grew until his small kitchen had to give way to an expanded place leaving the former small kitchen as a test kitchen. He opened his café that served hot meals and of course, cakes and pastries cum coffee and other drinks.
Then, the pandemic came and the boutique school and the café’s in-dining suspended operations. It was quite a disruption for his café had growing patronage with expanded seating area to include their garden and his boutique culinary school ran on weekdays with increased enrollees. Later, he shifted to pick up café products only. Resilience is fundamental in any undertaking and the will to survive paves the way forward.
Being young and resourceful, he shared with his two sisters his travails. The older sister, Rosette suggested that he make videos of his cooking demo. He did it using a cellphone camera with the help of a kitchen staff. In 2020, he set up his own You Tube channel that started with a pancake recipe that quickly gained 200,000 views within the week of posting. By mid-2020, he had 500,000 followers. In 2021, the followers reached 1.6 million. Technology has been a great tool in RV’s business.
Many of RV’s followers sent messages to say, they were able to put up small businesses in food using what they learned from the YouTube channel. A number of them lost their livelihood because of the pandemic. One group set up a FaceBook account of Chef RV Original Fans where they share knowledge and experience showing what they came up with as inspired by RV. He has been featured in some TV shows and broadsheet articles on Food. He continues to share knowledge with the underprivileged like giving cooking demo thru some professional groups’ advocacies on providing assistance to our kababayans. Even OFWs in different countries tune in on his YouTube Channel. Nothing can beat the electronic promotion from those who learned from RV’s channel.
While in college, he wrote his first cookbook, “Gastronomy & I.” He was cited as the youngest cookbook author at age 18. This was followed by two more cookbooks: “Baking Secrets” and “More Baking Secrets.” A compilation of 60+ recipes is now the feature of Chef RV’s “Cooking Secrets,” just launched on June 18. RV believes in sharing what he knows, his way of giving back.
RV was recognized by the City of Biñan as “Enterpreneur of the Year 2023.”
A clear vision of one’s business, sensitivity to the landscape and the drive to realize one’s goals complemented by hard work, will to succeed and mindful of the others, provide a good foundation to develop an enterprise.
*** Conchita L. Manabat is the President of the Development Center for Finance. A past President of Finex and past Chair of the International Association of Financial Executives Institutes, she serves as the Chair of the IAFEI Advisory Council. She is a member of the Consultative Advisory Groups of the International Auditing & Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) and the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants.