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Social
entrepreneurs Basil and Vie Reyes are negotiating to
supply one-kilo coffee roasters to a supermarket chain.
The pitch here is the supermarket will be able to give
its customers extra value for their money by roasting
the coffee beans of their choice within 10 minutes.
Should
the deal push through, expect the chain to become one of
the nicest smelling places in the country and have the
happiest salespeople too.
As
everybody knows, roasting small volumes for home
consumption is best because the full flavor and aroma of
coffee beans last for only 18 days (read: After that,
the coffee is considered, well, dead for all purposes).
So far,
the Reyes couple has tested their roasters in
partnerships with nongovernment organization located in
areas that are not necessarily coffee growers such as
Mactan. The system, including the computer that monitors
the roasting and the share of the Reyes couple in gross
sales, adds up to a one-time, albeit negotiable,
investment of P250,000.
Cost
wise, roasting a kilo of coffee add up to less than P10
in electricity, easily competing with the pricing of the
country’s biggest coffee brand, Nescafé. Mind you,
that’s brewed coffee versus instant coffee.
Oh yes,
the Reyes couple is in the process of registering their
roaster design with the Intellectual Property Office. It
seems there are some Africans, who are highly interested
in duplicating the project in their own countries.
Did you
know 1:
The
Monetary Board chaired by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. refused to bail out a
financial institution via an emergency loan to the
Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.
Despite
such a reservation, another bank did and is now holding
on to, well, overvalued collaterals that might
eventually weaken its own stature within the banking
industry.
Did you
know 2:
There’s a note tacked to all entrances of Metrowalk that
its closed circuit TVs are connected to the Eastern
Police District for the customers’ safety.
No, the
CCTV does not cover the second floor that police
regularly raid (read: Only from Monday to Friday) for
fake DVDs.
Not all
of Lasalle Greenhills’ entrances and exits face Ortigas
Avenue. There’s some more of those along Holy Cross
Street inside the subdivision where the walls are not so
high and where ingress and egress are restricted to
homeowners.
As
everybody knows, the Lasalle property was sold to the
Christian Brothers by the Ortigas family who used to
send all their boys to Lasalle but are now more
democratic in sending some sons to Xavier. The Ortigas
family originally offered the property from Edsa until
where the Unimart Supermarket now stands. The Christian
Brothers declined because they had enough money for only
so many hectares.
Nevertheless, the Greenhills campus is huge enough to
get lost in. Aside from the brothers’ home, far from
where the students come and go, there is another fully-airconditioned
and highly comfortable building that is used as a
retreat house for high-school students as well as
selected outsiders. |
