Puto & Kutsinta: How Our Small Business Helped Us Through Pandemic

The pandemic brought by COVID-19 changed everyone’s life. The world stopped for a while, then suddenly, nothing was the same. So far, for me, the pandemic is the height of my life. I’ve experienced lots of things during two years where everyone would rather stay home. The impact of the pandemic is massive, our country’s economy suffered and will take years to recover. Establishments closed and people lost jobs, it was very chaotic and depressing. Our family business also suffered this setback for a while.

Puto-Kutsinta, a simple start

My mother is a great cook, she’s always curious and always trying out new recipes, especially Filipino delicacies. One day she tried making puto and kutsinta for fun and now it was one of our sources of income. We have been in this business for 4 years now, it started as request orders, at a very slow pace. We’re getting 1 order per week because only a few people- our close friends, know that we’re now selling my mother’s puto and kutsinta. As the time goes our product became popular in our subdivision and we have lots of loyal customers. We started to invest more in our small business, it was getting better until the pandemic happened.

Like most businesses during the first months of the pandemic, we have to stop operating. It was sad, my mother loves her job still, and we need to prioritize our health because there was no vaccine at the time. For a while, we’re stuck at home doing nothing. However, when the government allow one in the household to go outside we resumed selling. More like we have no option but to resume business, my father abroad is having a hard time sending money to us so we have to earn.

At first, we thought that fewer people will buy our products due to being afraid of contracting the virus from the objects that came from other people. To our surprise, more people ordered from us, even more than before the pandemic began. It’s a small-scale operation, we only transact with the people inside of our subdivision. The income from our small business helped us survive through the pandemic, it only grow from there. Now, aside from puto and kutsinta, we’re also selling foods like pancit, palabok, and spaghetti.

Never underestimate the small

Having a small business that can help you provide for your everyday needs is a huge blessing, especially now that everything is expensive. What I have learned here is that if you put a lot of effort and hard work into something it will be rewarding. I am amazed by my mother’s hard work and dedication to helping my father earn. Of course, I help too I’m the assistant and I package our goods while my brothers deliver them. It was small yet so precious because I and my family work hard for it and watch it grow.