I've always been a big fan of food. I kept mentioning that I love to eat; well, balanced and responsible eating that is. When an opportunity knocked at my door to work at Cebu's largest processed frozen food manufacturer, I gave it a try. Looking back, Virginia was a small family-owned backyard business but small it may be it kept capturing the market, and year after year, the growth was unstoppable.
Before we knew it, the business badly needed social media presence. People looked for us online but not even a Facebook page about us could be found. Although my scope of work was handling a small team of business analysts, I knew I had to step in. Six months after I joined the company, someone was hire to focus on Exports and Social Media. The downside? She’s alone. We didn’t have a team that'll do the nitty-gritty of social media including the dirty works of doing the basic graphics, content, photoshoot, etc. so together we joined forces and created everything from scratch. When you’re a fresh grad, the idea of doing everything from scratch could only mean you learn things outside of what you’re supposed to be doing. And believe me, it was what made me fall in love with my job. It’s the thought I’m able to use my other skills and possibly acquire other skills along the way.
And just like magic, we made our first-ever social media page on Facebook, followed by Instagram and YouTube. I could only recall the excitement every time we had to plan and execute anything related to marketing. Again, we were a small company back then. I personally have done everything from slicing ingredients for the recipes we’d be making for Mother’s Day promotions, to organizing larger photoshoots wherein we’d team up with local culinary schools and chefs, to taking and editing videos for one of our canned good advertisements and even feeling like I’m a real graphic artist every time I designed something for our Facebook page. It was the kind of fun I never stopped craving.
One time we collaborated with a chef and the school he’s affiliated with. The chefs came up with recipes wherein they’d use our products. The twist is that they used it on recipes people wouldn’t normally think it’s possible to use. Have you eaten bibingka (rice cake) with corned beef or suman with bacon? We did and it ain’t that weird afterall. Now I missed doing the crazy stuff at work!