You Can Help Small Food Businesses By Ordering from Mercato Centrale's Cloud Kitchens

Mercato Centrale is a food market that gathers mostly beginner entrepreneurs with exciting food concepts and helps grow them to eventually become independent, full-scale and self-sustaining outlets and restaurants. But, like most other enterprises, its small food businesses were forced to close down because of the enhanced community quarantine, resulting in lost wages and livelihood. 

But Mercato Centrale’s founders devised a plan to keep part of the business running to at least help mitigate the effects of the ECQ. That plan involves opening so-called “cloud kitchens” for some of the vendors, allowing them to continue operations, albeit at a much smaller scale. The food is prepared at these cloud kitchens and delivered to customers in select areas of Metro Manila.

“We had to pivot Mercato’s business model,” said co-founder RJ Ledesma. “This is to help our micro vendors get back on their feet during the crisis because they aren’t earning any income (while Mercato Centrale is closed).

Residents of Makati City, Bonifaco Global City in Taguog, Mandaluyong City and Quezon City can order some of the food items from Mercato Centrale favorites, including Chicken Biryani (P260) and Beef Qeema (P365) from Azaan Halal, Barbecue Pork Ribs (P520) and Roast Beef (P52) from Chicago Pizza and Pasta, Bagnet Tokwa Rice Patong (P130) and Longganisa Bagnet Rice Patong (P165) from Bagnet Patong, and many others.

If you’d like to help these businesses out, and get a filling, tasty meal while doing so, you can send a message via Facebook Chat: @mercatocentrale, IG Direct Message @mercatocentrale, and via SMS: (0977) 608 6353, (0933) 546 3084, (0933) 091 8967.