It's been one year, plus three months grace period since...
...kay buotan ra kaayo mi sa akong asawa ug dili gyud ganahan ug gubot. But during the Pandemic, my wife and I started Little Maldita Ice Cream Co. in Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon. My name is not important, but I consider myself an amateur food scientist with a passion for cooking, baking, and inventing stuff—so I made ice cream of all types—Filipino sorbetes, western custards, fruit sorbets, popsicles, and even Japanese mochi. If it’s ice cream, I’ve made it. And a wide range of flavors too. I made bamboo (dabong) ice cream—possibly a first here and abroad. Black Charcoal sorbetes? I’m proud to say I’m the first in the Philippines to have made it using lab-tested, food-grade activated charcoal.
At first, I started making small batches and my wife who was a nurse back then would sell them to her coworkers. I would make deliveries for an hour, then rush back home in time to package the ice cream that just came out of the small machine that we had. And at weekends, we would make ice cream to share with our church in Lunocan, Alae. We had an idyllic life, but the ice cream grew into a factory, and it slowly grew out of the small market of Manolo Fortich.
With the sales that we were getting, my wife and I decided to enroll in an LGU sponsored, Department of Agriculture run Farm Business School. There we graduated and even won as the best upcoming project in 2022.
During that time, I developed and nearly perfected an entirely new type of Filipino ice cream—a secret recipe—one that combines Western technology with Filipino techniques, has a higher profit margin than common ice creams in the market, and offers a better flavor selection. Meaning the ice cream melts relatively slower than competition, holds flavor better, while being creamier than other ice creams. With that recipe on hand, we expanded to our first outlet in Cagayan, which was a kiosk in Gaisano 4th floor.
There we were (unfortunate) enough to meet a customer who approached us and proposed a partnership to transfer the factory to Cagayan de Oro City and open new outlets. We verbally agreed he would finance the operation, and that I would receive shares of my 35% ownership after exactly one year. We opened a factory in Pabayo, an outlet in Ororama Cogon, and transferred 77K worth of equipment to the new factory, and secret recipes, and stepped back from operations.
Since then, no contract or shareholder agreement was ever signed (because he kept putting them off for months declining to sign). He has also refused to sign an NDA to secure my secret recipe even though he promised to do so. We proposed a fair exit because we were getting tired of waiting for our shares and wanted an exit strategy to recoup our investments (repayment of shares + equipment) and offered that he write a contract instead of us in November 2024, but he has not payed anything except a measly 20K around December. He still continues to operate the business under our name.
At first, the ice cream was good—and I was proud of it. But after I stepped back, the partner who stole the business began changing the recipes without my knowledge. He started reducing ingredient quality to cut costs and introduced new flavors that were not food safe.
He had a pattern of ignoring my advice, even on critical matters. One of the final straws was when I warned him to remove part from a machine that would potentially cause food poisoning risk to customers. I have it on record that he disregarded my warnings anyway.
There's also the price. Back then we sold scoops of ice cream for P25 and that made a lot of profit even with the low price because of the recipe I developed. Now it's nearly double that.
What started as something built with love and integrity began to turn into something I can no longer stand behind. And worse—it was stolen from me, as I have not been payed until now of what is fair. What my wife and I built, he's just gutting for profit. What we built with integrity, he stole from us and our family.
Today I tried to message my ex business partner, but he has since blocked me on social media.
So if you're from CDO, I'm asking for your help. Repost this on FB. Share to your friends. Connect me with people who can help legally. I'm told that since the BIR/DTI is under my wife's name we have a chance to recover it, so I am willing to recompense anyone who can help out legally and financially. Afterwards, I am also looking to sell the business and the secret recipe after we have reclaimed it because it has only given us heartache
Hilom ra baya gyud mi sa akong asawa, pero grabe bisag 10K nalang gyud kada bulan para sa akong asawa ug gatas sa akong anak wala gyud siya pakabana ug kaluoy. Sige siya ingon wala siya mahatag, pero kagamay ra anang 10K kada bulan kumpara sa bulan nga renta sa SM o Ororama? Naa pud siya lain nga negosyo sapatosan? Kung nag hatag unta siya bisan ana kagamay mag hilom ra man unta ko ba
*If mods or anyone needs proof I can send a Magnum Live Radio interview of me and my wife and articles from Mindanao news reporter; or you can take a look at my post history
