Big, Bold Bebang: A Pandemic-Born Halo-Halo Biz Hits The Big Time

(SPOT.ph) Just when you thought all kinds of halo-halo versions have been invented, along comes Bebang Halo-halo. You can even say it turned the idea of the iconic Filipino dessert upside down—because if you’re used to eating your halo-halo leche flan first, Bebang completely flipped this concept by placing the piece de resistance at the bottom of this classic iced dessert. So you savor the best for last.

This out-of-the-box take on the country’s well-loved panghimagas is just one of several reasons Bebang is currently making a killing at all of its three store counters: its CNE Mansion outlet along Shaw Boulevard, which is exclusively for delivery orders; plus the Market! Market! store and the just-opened branch at SM Megamall where at any given time, there’s bound to be a long line of people waiting to get their hands on a Presidential, a Buko Pandan, or a Mango Classic.

And yes, Bebang fans are not only willing to wait past an hour to get their order, they’re also willing to pay a higher price for their halo-halo—higher compared to most other halo-halos in the market, we mean.

Finding gold in a cold dessert

So what’s so special about Bebang? Placing the leche flan at the bottom is just the tip of the, well, iceberg (pardon the mention of a competing brand, hehe). There’s also their ice base which, unlike traditional halo-halo that uses plain shaved ice poured on with evaporated milk, Bebang uses shaved frozen full cream milk that, on its own, is good enough to eat. “Almost like cream or Bingsu” is how some Tiktokers describe it.

Throw in a fiesta of classic and premium ingredients and you’ve got a bestselling dessert people will come back for again and again. Priced at PhP 168, their bestselling classic halo-halo version called Presidential is served with special macapuno, banana (Bebang’s version is made with cinnamon), ube halaya, nata, langka, sago, pandan jelly, and rice crispies.

In 2022, they gave Filipinos a luxury version of the iced dessert unlike any they’ve ever had: the “Royal” Halo-halo, layered with fancy ingredients like strawberries, peach, blueberry, macapuno, and pistachio and then unexpectedly topped with “24-karat gold!” It was sold at a whopping Php 498. While this product is no longer part of the Bebang menu, it stuck with their customers, along with the tagline “Fun. Royal. Filipino!”

“Bebang was like a pandemic baby that started out of boredom, I guess,” says the Lebanese-born Sam Karazi, when asked how his business partner, Daymae “Mae” Salumbides, began the business. Sam takes care of the marketing, e-commerce, and business expansions of Bebang, while Mae oversees all the product innovation and day-to-day store operations.  “She’s more of a people person, I’m more of business and marketing man. If there’s a deal to be signed or negotiations to make, I’m your guy. Talking with the team, creating a new product, playing around with food ideas, that’s Mae’s passion,” says Sam. They used to be married. Sam met Mae in Dubai. She was working as a sales executive at the company where he was manager.

Sam and Mae maintain a great business relationship and have equal stakes in the business (they are also co-parenting their two daughters). “[Mae and I] remain very close friends even after we broke up. ... We worked together for almost five years in Dubai, that’s why we enjoy working together! We really know how to work together.”

Also read: 10 Desserts in Manila That We buy for Ourselves

Bebang was born August 2021 in their neighborhood at Teacher’s Village, Quezon City. The halo-halo was inspired by the recipe of Mae’s grandmother, Bebang, who used to make it using frozen milk in place of plain shaved ice. Mae ran the store with four cousins, selling them to neighbors and passersby. It was similar to a sari-sari store setup. Knowing Mae deserved more, and most likely can do more, Sam eventually offered to jump in and help turn it into something bigger. “I could see that people were liking it and I told her I will help with the social media advertisements, develop a social media page, and have it branded properly.”

While in the thick of doing these online strategies, Sam realized they may have found a gold mine.

“This is a good product. Everybody was coming back. People were raving about it. People were fighting to be able to order it,” says Sam, recalling the early days when orders started pouring online to the point that it overwhelmed Mae and her modest staff. Seeing its bigger potential, the ex-couple started investing money and time into growing Bebang. They chose Shaw Boulevard as the most strategic location, so they can deliver to surrounding areas like Ortigas, BGC and Makati where people had stronger purchasing power. This was the right market: after all, they were the most expensive halo-halo in town at Php168, compared to other brands which were selling for less than Php100.

“Everyone except me was skeptical,” Sam says, looking back. “They say, ‘who will pay PhP168 for halo-halo?’ I told them we were selling a very premium product, either we charge properly for it or I’d rather not do [the business] at all.” 

Sam went all out to grow the business from a neighborhood store into a profitable, sustainable, and expandable business. He says they currently have 120 people and that includes the four cousins who started with them. Mae, for her part, keeps innovating new flavors, many of which have become bestsellers. Among these are Banana Cinnamon Con Yelo, Halokay Ube, Buko Pandan, and Mango Graham Caramel. “One by one I paused everything else,” says Sam, referring to other business plans he had going outside of Bebang. “It looked like a very big opportunity and then we focused 100% on it.”

The innovation did not stop with the flavors but translated to many other aspects of the business. Because of his background in e-commerce, Sam was able to develop a software that will provide a system to keep the workflow—from management, receiving orders, to delivery—running smoothly.

Churning 3,000 Bebangs a day

With COVID-19 still very much around in 2021, Sam and Mae dared have their halo-halos delivered with a promise that they would be handed to customers in perfect frozen condition—or their money back. To do this, Bebang invested in R & D that would result in a frozen dairy formula that would delay melting reaction. For every delivery, their products were placed inside an insulated foil bag packed with ice cubes. “I told Mae that I will make people trust us by getting the product delivered in good shape,” says Sam. “Even if your place is one hour away, you will get it like it was just made in the store.”

The strategy worked and the bags packed with ice became a commonly featured part of the videos vloggers would post on their platforms—which added a great plus to the reputation of Bebang products.

From an initial projection of selling just 500 cups a day when they were starting out, their Shaw branch now sells 2,000 cups a day and 3,000 during peak months, this is from combined online orders and walk-in customers. At their Megamall and Market! Market! branches, they average more than 1000 cups a day, all from walk-in customers. The delivery ordering system has yet to be activated in Market! Market! and Megamall, says Sam. Such huge production is better done in their much bigger Shaw space than in the other two locations which measure 40-sqm at most.

Bebang’s success is the reason Sam has been getting messages asking if they’re open to franchising their halo halo biz. “Every day I receive around 50 messages,” he reveals. “We have offers from Dubai, Singapore, and L.A. but [we’re not entertaining the thought at the moment] to keep the quality of the products. If we have a formula like Jollibee and McDonald’s, then we can franchise. For now, we do not.”

But expansion, yes, that’s happening. Before 2024 ends, they are opening eight new stores located north, east, west, and south of Manila: SM Manila, Southmall, Ayala Fairview Terraces, SM North EDSA, SM Valenzuela, SM East Ortigas, SM Mall Of Asia, and Lucky China Town. By 2025, they hope to open around 20 to 24 more stories and another 20 by 2026. By 2027, Sam says, they hope to go international.

The art of marketing a product you’ve never tasted

It is interesting to note that despite the success of Bebang, Sam has not tasted any of its products, but there is a perfectly valid reason for this: he is allergic to dairy. We’re not talking about a simple itch or rash here—ingesting even a drop of dairy could mean a trip to the hospital. “I [developed] my allergy in 2011. I get fever, I start shivering, and get severe allergy [if I eat dairy]. That’s the reason why I cannot even taste [our product],” he reveals.

Sam suspects he developed the allergy because he used to eat cheese a lot—cheese, he says, is a big part of the Lebanese diet. “Before I got my food allergy I used to be addicted to cheese. That’s what caused the allergy. My body was telling me to stop,” he adds.

But the guy says he doesn’t really need to taste the product for him to successfully market it. While not all marketing professionals would agree with him, Sam just needs to see the long queue of customers in front of his stores to believe Bebang Halo-halo is a great product.

“Analytics and what people are saying--that’s what got us here. It didn’t come easy. We worked very hard to earn the people’s trust,” says Sam.

“So, when I say I haven’t really tasted it, it doesn’t really matter. You don’t really have to taste your product to be good at selling it,” Sam adds, letting out a laugh at the irony of it all. A salesman who never got to try his product, a Lebanese marketing a Filipino dessert, exes harmoniously running a business—the Bebang story, like its halo-halo, is made up of many unique layers. But here’s the leche flan of it all: this once humble neighborhood stall will one day conquer the rest of the world.

Also read: 10 Essential Halo-Halo Spots That Will Help You Beat the Heat