City of San Fernando--After three years of plummeting sales, delicacy makers are now experiencing brisk sales, especially amid the onset of the Yuletide season.
"Compared to the three previous years, we are now having better sales and better outputs. We see this to pick up this Yuletide season,” said Nimfa Manalo, proprietor of Nimfa’s Deli here.
She added that while the pandemic had been a blow to local delicacy makers, the pandemic also saw to the rise in interest for food that is well processed and packed due to health restrictions.
Like her interview last year, she added that most people now are more interested in easy-to-prepare food.
She cited the high price of ingredients and the painstaking time to prepare home-cooked delicacies like tsokolateng batirul, kalame, suman, and mamon tostado. These products usually experience high demand during the Yuletide season as gifts and must-haves at dinner tables for Christmas.
Deli merchants here pointed out that the process of making such delicacies for a whole family would take around four to five hours, depending on the volume to be made.
“Families seem to have stopped passing the food tradition to the next generation. Those who cannot cook the delicacies could not resort to deli merchants to cook for them since the price alone is very discouraging,” Manalo said.
This coming December, the province of Pampanga will be hosting the first Manyaman Food Festival that will showcase Pampanga's rich culinary heritage including food products and recipes of delicacies made in the province.
Manalo said that the move will greatly bring more attention to Pampanga's booming food and culinary industry.