As a single parent, I have a lot of side hustles in order to make ends meet and help build up my emergency funds and investment portfolios. I have been in and out of the buying and selling business. from clothes, bags, anything.

You name it, I can sell it.

My most successful and longest-running venture, however, is the Homemade Skinless Longanisa.

Skinless Longanisa is a type of sausage without the pork casing. It's a famous Filipino breakfast dish that has a garlicky taste with a hint of spice and a sweet taste.
I have been making and selling them ever since 2012. It was a family business and the original recipe was passed down to us by my aunt, while me and my mom added some renditions to the Longanisa Mix.

My job was to sell products to neighbors and friends in our hometown. Our marketing strategy back then was purely word of mouth and the proactive selling of goods by going to one place and another. It was later in 2014 when I first started using Facebook to sell the Longanisa.

This has always been my go-to side hustle since I love cooking and the food business has a huge market, plus the quality of the product really speaks for itself.

Our skinless longanisa is made from pure meat with no added preservatives and extenders. We also have a perfect blend of garlic and chili, which really complement the taste of the longanisa. I guess that's the secret as to why we have a lot of repeat buyers.

When we first started the business, we didn't really do thorough tracking of the data and numbers that the business was making. Personally, all I cared about back then was that I was making a profit and didn't mind looking at the bigger picture with all the numbers. If only I had, I would have been surprised at how much we were able to grow the small business. I was a bad entrepreneur then.

We were in and out of the Skinless Longanisa business throughout the years and eventually put it on a break by 2017 when I moved to Cebu to work in the city. My mother was caring for my children and was having difficulty juggling running the house and the business without my assistance, plus I was the one who was heavily involved in hard selling.

Fast forward to May 2020. It was in the midst of the pandemic when I decided to revisit my business and bring it to Cebu City. The food business was really in demand back then as almost everything was sold and ordered online due to the curfews and other COVID restrictions.

It was the perfect opportunity to relaunch the business.

I was lucky to have a partner who is very keen on details and loves to track everything in excel files. He was also business-minded like me, so we clicked. He made a customized file to track and breakdown everything from costs, gross income, net profit, inventory, customer profiles, and all other stuff while I was in charge of marketing and we both worked on product making.

We started with only $1,000 ($17). I was able to buy 2 kilograms of meat plus the other ingredients needed, and we were able to make the first batch of longanisa.

This sold quickly, and before we knew it, we were making at least 4 kilos of longanisa every other day. Our $17 grew, and we were able to buy equipment to make our production easier.

The first thing we bought was a Manual Stuffed Sausage Maker. It was a tool we used to place the mixture into the plastic casing. Back then, I used to place the longanisa on the plastic wrapper manually using a disposable plastic icing bag. It was a tedious job that ate up a lot of time and patience. When we bought the sausage maker, packing the longanisa was made much easier.
The next thing we bought was a plastic sealer. We were packing at least 30-40 packs per day, and back then what we used was a candle. Imagine how hard it was and how very unpleasing the wrap looks. The plastic sealer was a very good investment. We also bought a kitchen scale and a lumpia roller.

Aside from the equipment, we also invested in a good logo, as we would like to build a brand and think long term and we added other products on to the business but all of which still focus around Longanisa, just different versions.

Our Products

• Skinless Longanisa
• Lumpianisa
• Longaganisang Hubad
• Rice Toppings