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I've been thinking about the traditional or local business a long time ago to have another source of fiat income. It's just so hard to find a business that will boom instead of bankrupt later on. Then, out of the blue, my husband's best friend proposes a joint business venture, a Takoyaki franchise cart. They franchise it on someone my husband and friends know personally.
When my husband tell me the idea, I approved it right away. He doesn't have any money left for investment purposes since all his savings were burnt out after our wedding. Since I have some crypto holdings I decided to sell some to chip in on the capital to start a small business. Even if it's a bear market, I didn't mind anymore since we will use it for better purposes anyway.
What is Takoyaki?
Takoyaki is a street snack originating in Japan, it is cooked in a special molded pan and has a ball shape. Its ingredients are minced or diced octopus, tempura scraps, pickled ginger, and green onion.
But in our country (Philippines) the ingredients have been tweaked to make them commercialized snacks so it is profitable since seafood is pricey.
Our Takoyaki flavors & Ingredients
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Our Takoyaki has two flavors only since it's not easy to cook it as it has to be flipped manually. Having a lot of flavors will make it hard to cater to customers. We only have two which are;
- Ham & Cheese
- Veggies
Takoyaki Ingredients
- Takoyaki batter - this is the one we franchise, the mixture of the Takoyaki. (We can make our mixture, it's just that we after the cart and the things needed as we don't know yet.)
- Ham & Cheese - for another flavoring
- Round cabbage and carrots - for veggies flavor
Sauce Ingredients
- Ketchup - formulated from commercialized one
- Mayonnaise
- Dried leaves for decorating
- Hot sauce for spicy flavor
How to cook Takoyaki?
The guy did a demo to us on how to cook the Takoyaki in its molded pan. At first, it's not that easy to cook it I mean in a fast manner since you have to flip it manually to form it into a ball.
Sorry for the video, it's raw and I wasn't able to include a caption since I just uploaded it on my husband's YouTube account directly. But, you can see the process anyway without understanding the language.
This is the finished product of Takoyaki. For me, without being biased the snack taste good and even three balls can ease your hunger. It's also nutritious since the ingredients are vegetables, ham, and cheese. It's not like other junk food snacks.
Moving Cart
Our cart has motorcycles so they can sell in any place they like if they are looking for a better place. The location they are selling Takoyaki is near the basketball court. We still don't have any tarpaulin and stickers about Takoyaki in our cart. They are still working on it, hopefully, when it already has tarpaulin and stickers it can attract more customers.
He is cooking the flavor of the veggies here. This day, he was alone because his brother has some personal errands.
It's been three days since they are selling, the one who will sell daily is my brother-in-law since my husband will be back in Manila on September 19, 2022, for his job reporting.
This was their first dry run selling. It was raining at that time. They started at 4 PM and sold out their 1-kilo Takoyaki batter for 2 hours only. We were so happy that this little business is selling better.
As of now, the husband still assisting his brother. They are still adjusting, their sales are 2k daily. For us, it's a good start already because who will give you 2k pesos daily right? They are also adjusting where to put their cart to a better spot that is near to customers.
Hopefully, their sales will increase a little soon when they already adopted or gotten used to it. I hope this business will grow and we plan to expand soon if it has better results.
May God bless our business 🙏
