WHILE everyone is busy these days growing their business, Cebu’s biggest online food community, Let’s Eat Bai (LEB), is also busy supporting online “foodtrepreneurs” (food entrepreneurs) by providing them a private digital marketplace on Facebook.
LEB—created by LEB Holdings Inc. president JP Chiongbian in 2016—started as a private Facebook group which focused on healthy discussions about up-and-coming restaurants and current food trends.
In March 2020, Chiongbian, who is armed with experience in the consumer goods industry (he is also the president and managing director of SunStar Best of Cebu-awarded Sugbo Mercado), shifted LEB into a private digital marketplace by allowing a few local vendors to sell their goods. In just a weeks’ time, the group grew, making it the biggest online food community in the whole province. Currently, LEB has more than 120,000 members.
Maintaining a Facebook group is one thing but being on top of a fast-growing online community is another. With thousands of requests for posts per day, guidelines were soon imposed to ensure quality and safety, which has now become a benchmark for most online food communities in Cebu. LEB now also has its own Online Food Directory to make everything more organized.
LEB has also created its Certified Vendors Program with the intent to elevate online sellers from being a home-based entrepreneur, to becoming a full-blown entrepreneur, guiding them into becoming a registered business.
Now, the group is launching its latest initiative: LEB Mobile. LEB Mobile is Cebu’s first homegrown full-service food and delivery app made by Cebuanos with over 4,000 merchants featured in Let’s Eat Bai.
LEB Mobile, available for Android users and soon for iOS users, is an end-to-end food and logistics app created to support the continuous growth of home-based entrepreneurs as the world eases into the era of e-commerce.
LEB has partnered with industry leaders of cashless transactions and delivery services, eyeing to serve the markets of Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu City, Mandaue City, Talisay City, Liloan, Naga and Minglanilla.