Aleng Sorbetero
MENTION belgium and top of mind, the European country gets associated with chocolates, waffles and beer.
But here is an arresting sight, an Aleng Sorbetero making the rounds in the market square of Brussels and Antwerp replete with a bell and ice cream cart selling ube, mango, sampalok (tamarind) and even durian.
Behind this delightful venture is an interracial couple who have not stopped toiling since they set their sights on opening an ice cream shop in the cold climes of Belgium. One-half of them is a Belgian pastry chef, the other half a Filipina nurse.
Kamille Cabrera Rodriguez came to Belgium as a nurse. Back in Manila, she had roamed the streets of Ermita looking for opportunities abroad at a time when the United States and the United Kingdom were not onboarding Filipina nurses.
At the time, she had notched four years at the Makati Medical Center after graduating from the University of Santo Tomas.
“Never in our wildest imagination did we think we would put up an ice cream shop!” she gushed now, cutting over the first part of her business story: the hard part.
“We” refers to both her and husband, Jelle, who used to work in a bakery.
Their sweet dreams really started as “sweat” dreams. Both Kamille and Jelle hustled during the holidays, leaving them no time for their young kids.
“I didn’t really want that,” the willful Kamille said. Flexibility would be a recurring theme of their business motives.
However, before breaking even, the rigidity of their labors hardened even more their main draw — being that rare artisanal ice cream shop in Europe selling Filipino flavors.
The ice cream demanded churning and preparing. The events called for coordinating. The children needed babysitting.
So the couple, whose love story began on a dating site in 2016, divvied up “the really hard work.”
There came a point Jelle didn’t want to work anymore and “wanted to be his own boss,” so they bought an ice cream machine. They couldn’t have cooled the fires of burnout another way.
‘Dirty’ ice cream, clean flavors
The classic flavors were a shoo-in. The Belgian and pastry chef in Jelle was on top of the foundational ingredients.
For novelty, he turned to Kamille. The latter, for inspiration, turned to her childhood for the delights she was missing.
Ube, mango, durian and avocado — the flavors redolent of her native country were thrust into the centerpiece. In Brussels and Antwerp, where Kamille and Jelle vended their initial experiments, avocado wasn’t considered dessert. Then the acquired taste (and smell) that is durian was always going to be a marketing hoopla.
Filipino sorbetes sold. First to the Filipino Facebook groups where Kamille belonged. Technique, hometown love and word of mouth were key. The couple drove door-to-door to deliver.
Their first sale was an hour’s drive. They would deliver for free in the Brussels area. The payoff would be the unchained demand for the couple’s offering. And one of Kamille’s buyers had a sizable Instagram follower base.
“Sa Pilipinas din naman ako lumaki,” Kamille said, making a detour to her beginnings not just as main marketer, administrator, events coordinator and even social media campaigner for their family brand, “Ang Sorbetes ni Manong Jelle,” but as a now stable and integrated Filipino migrant worker to Belgium.
“So I know the Filipino taste. Di rin naman ako alta. Alam mo ‘yung parang street food…” she paused to capture the concept. And a Filipino interviewer immediately understood.
Sorbetes in the Philippines, once pejoratively called “dirty ice cream,” has a register distinct from the commercial tubs off grocery shelves.
Their brand struck this popular image of Pinoy sorbetes.
“We really worked on the Filipino market first,” Kamille confirmed.
The nostalgia for that Pinoy sorbetes cart plying the streets on hazy tropical afternoons in the city has been expatriated to Belgium by Kamille and Jelle.
Filipinos, concentrated in Brussels and Antwerp, trooped the food festivals and forked out their hard-earned euros for the other Pinoy flavors that would evolve from the couple’s kitchen adventures.
Chocnut and Milo joined the original lineup. As did daring twists such as spicy tamarind (this writer’s favorite). Pretty soon, the couple’s original ice cream machine could no longer handle their volume. They bought a bigger one.
The bright-colored fiesta-themed cart of metal canisters insulating the various flavors gave way to the ice cream bike. Summers in Northern Europe are made of these sights: children and adults roaming the city, cones in hand. The usual Western ice cream man might have a small kiosk, but the Pinoy-inspired sorbetero will be the pop of color.
Bricks and cones
Selling Pinoy ice cream in festivals is a sweet deal. Kamille attests they could earn a month’s hustle in a day of carting around.
The caveat: they labor around the festival ice cream supply with the hard work that seems to last the whole month. “We have to make a lot of the ice cream on our own, we have to drive there [to the festivals] and stay there the whole day,” Kamille summed up.
On top of that, hands-on childcare and paying off a mortgage kept Kamille glued part-time to being a nurse.
The hustle had been in momentum since 2000. Back then, Kamille had given birth to her second child. She and Jelle were also nursing the ice cream brand.
The state must be credited for some of Kamille’s free time: she was entitled to a maternity leave four months before giving birth and five months after, in what was called a breastfeeding leave. She had more time in her hands, while her firstborn also started school.
Apart from their almost explosive growth, some things never changed, like the biggest challenge in the enterprise: the weather.
“During winter, wala masyadong festival, so we needed to look for a brick-andmortar [store],” Kamille said. It took them a year until they spotted their current space in the town of Belsele, 20 minutes from Antwerp.
“Pag naka-ice cream bike kasi kami, hindi namin sila (their usual buyers) mahanap,” she added.
This is an electrifying transition, from two professionals of a more artisanal bent.
“I never took business courses!” Kamille dropped. “Except for that one economics class [back in college].”
Her disbelief in their smooth sail had her recounting the actually systematic ways they expanded. The ice cream bike, through the prodding of friends who convinced them of the potential in their product, drove straight into supplying shops and restaurants.
Filipina nurse takes the sorbetes to Belgium, where the cold climes cannot freeze out an overseas Pinoy’s hankering for flavors such as ube, mango and even durian.