Innovation

The croffle store owned by Melanie Ouano and Catherine Ingles decided to open in Parkmall Cebu on August 8, 2025. Their objective was not only to serve delicious croffles, but to create meaningful opportunities for young adults in the community. They are currently operating with a small all-women team. The store prioritizes employing female students in their fourth year, as well as recent graduates, ensuring that these young women gain meaningful work experience while completing their studies or starting their careers. This approach allows young women to gain practical experience while completing their studies or beginning their careers, a step toward addressing gender imbalances in youth employment. In addition, during the hiring process, they consider factors such as commute distance and make sure that they don’t live far, to create a supportive and safe environment on and off work hours. 

On-site of the small business, employees gain hands-on experience in customer service, food preparation, teamwork, and business operations. By offering these training programs, it gives the employees a space to foster their entrepreneurial skills. The croffle store is more than a workplace, it’s a training ground for these people to become future professionals, as it helps them in understanding the inner workings of a business. It has emerged as a beacon of financial empowerment and local community development. This service not only contributes as a stepping stone for women to achieve financial stability and professional growth, but also is a good start towards addressing broader social and economic inequalities in the region.

Inspiration

Amanda Ouano, the store’s manager, who is in college herself, explained during the interview, “I think one of our goals is to create a warm and welcoming space. And aside from that, our business has helped a lot because we wanted to also create livelihood opportunities by employing, let's just say, residents, especially young people looking for part-time or entry-level work, since the croffle store in Parkfall operates with a small but dedicated team. So, yeah, we prioritize hiring individuals from nearby communities to support local employment.” This approach shows how even a small business can make a meaningful impact on a community by fostering local employment and economic growth. 

Overall impact

Croffle Store's pioneering effort to introduce Korean-influenced croffles via a local-owned franchise has created a beneficial ripple effect on business operations, society, and the environment. In coordination with the franchisor KGC corporation, the store maintains consistent product quality, and efficient workflows, empowering first-time workers to preform confidently and professioanlly. One of the staff members testified, "They actually do daily checkups with us through Messenger… their timely response keeps us from slowing down and a smooth workflow is ensured." This teamwork supports performance, which enables constant product quality and customer satisfaction while allowing the business to be professionally run by the team.

To the benefit of the public, the store provides employment opportunities and on-the-job training for youths and residents of neighboring communities with preference given to locals from surrounding communities. It instills business students with teamwork, time management, and entrepreneurial skills and presents a warm environment where people go and interact. 

Environmentally, the store has responsible preparation and waste reduction: "We prepare only what's needed for the day," an employee explained, in order to retain freshness and reduce spoilage. Close coordination with the franchisor also prevents oversupply and prevents logistical wastage.

Short-term gains were the creation of jobs, brand image, and experiential learning. Long-term goals for the Croffle Store are sustaining development, scaling local employment, and institutionalizing training programs so that workers move into management roles or become entrepreneurs in their own right. Being an early franchisee is also something that can be an inspiration for other student entrepreneurs to dive into franchising. It was a learning objective for the employees and myself as well—we learned a great deal from both sides," the team explained. This collective growth and consistent customer base are tangible proof of lasting, significant influence.

Business benefit

The employees have been trained comprehensively on how to prepare the product in ; preparation of the food, ingredient handling, packaging, as well as sales techniques.This investment in workforce development has not only increased the business operations and made it more efficient, but also in fostering marketing skills within employees which gives an upper hand in professionalism and competence. It has resulted in increased sales and a broader market because a large number of customers would be served simultaneously using a well-trained workforce. This contributes to SDG 8 targets to promote sustained, inclusive,and productive employment.

Customer satisfaction and retention has grown due to reliable service and consistent product quality, allowing the small business to better scale its operations while maintain a strong local presence. The improvement contributes to the local economy of cebu by generating income and encouraging further economic activity. 

Through retaining a certain supplier of ingredients (KGC) and educationally trained employees, the business has developed a good brand name of making tasty waffles with sweet flavors. This has ensured a quality and service consistency that have won the loyalty of customers and helped the business to become solid in the local market. This stability and reputation help secure long-term business sustainability aligning with SDG 8’s objective to support entrepreneurship and business growth that creates decent work opportunities. 

Social and environmental benefit

Through full-time and occasional part-time hires, the store contributes to local employment while helping students balance work and school commitments. This not only supports decent employment opportunities but also promotes workforce inclusivity and skills development supporting SDG 8’s aim on productive employment and safe working environments.

Expansion plans include; additional branches and local collaborations with other businesses that share the same goals as them in promotion of social impact and environmental awareness. This bonds the ties with the local community of Cebu and encourages more joint efforts in encouraging sustainable practices, which int turn creates a positive social impact.

By reducing waste, using high quality ingredients, and maintaining consistent standards, the store ensures both community well-being and sustainability. They specifically do so through the following; the small business has an environmental impact that encourages responsible production through the reduction and management of content and food waste, thus ensuring that the surroundings are clean with no litter, ensuring quality in ingredients they serve. Inventory is checked daily and making sure it’s just enough to be used for the day to reduce waste. Coordination with the supplier helps minimize oversupply. The high quality of the products offered to the consumers is achieved by using the ingredients which are provided by the main company (KGC), and, consequently, the well-being of the consumers is secured, which further aligns with SDG 12 ( Responsible Consumption and Production) and indirectly with SDG 8. 

Interview

Amanda Ouano, manager

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