Savoring Success | How Jake Deleon of Fila Manila Took Filipino Flavors to the Masses

Written by Jennifer Redondo

When starting a Filipino food product business, there are so many questions to ask yourself: How would you explain and describe Filipino food to your non-Filipino friends who are curious and interested in trying it out? How do you make it sound approachable and familiar? How do you appeal to the masses? This is the challenge that Jake Deleon has taken head on with his company, Fila Manila, a Filipino-American food company that makes delicious Filipino-inspired sauces, condiments, and spreads like Adobo sauce, Kare Kare peanut sauce, Ube Purple Yam spread, and Banana Ketchup.  

Fila Manila represents the next generation of Filipino-American flavors. The company launched in November 2020, growing revenue from $6,000 to $50,000 to $400,000 in just two years! You may have seen Jake Deleon on Shark Tank! He pitched in Season 15, and was featured on Episode 16 where he was able to score a $250,000 investment offer from Daniel Lubetzsky, founder of KIND Snacks. The episode was watched by millions of viewers both on live TV and streaming. If you’re curious to learn more about Jake Deleon and Fila Manila, read on as we had the opportunity to catch up with the entrepreneur himself post-Shark Tank!    

1. Tell us about yourself. 

I am not your stereotypical Filipino. I am not in New York or Los Angeles, I don’t sing, I don’t dance, and I do not work in the medical field. My Tagalog is so terrible, and there’s a TikTok that went viral because of how poor my Tagalog was on Shark Tank. 

I am the founder of Fila-Manila. I am a first generation Filipino-American immigrant. I was born in the Philippines and raised in the exotic land of New Jersey. My parents are from equally delicious regions. My mom is from Pampanga, and my dad is from Iloilo. Like most immigrant families, food was always the center of the household. Growing up, my earliest memory of being in the food business was helping my mom cook turon, longanisa and pancit. We would sell food for extra income because we didn’t have a lot. 

Ironically enough, I ended up working for big food consumer product companies – Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Starbucks, building beloved billion dollar brands after attending Drexel University where I studied Fine Arts. I was an art student, and I landed in the corporate world because I always had a desire to exercise my logic and creative sides. I got an amazing opportunity to join P&G through a program where they were looking for Asian Americans that grew up in the U.S. that were in touch with their Asian culture and roots. I moved abroad to Singapore for P&G , then I moved to Starbucks where I worked in Marketing for Asia Pacific. At Starbucks, I had the dream job! I worked on innovating limited time beverages throughout the different Asian countries.   

After working in corporate for a while, I had an entrepreneurial itch and still had a desire to create a business of my own. I love food and building businesses. More importantly, I like sharing who I am with everyone. I had a conversation with my mentor who encouraged me – through questions about risk versus regret. She told me, the risk is that you leave corporate and you fail, but the alternative is regret. Later in life, you may look back wishing that you did something or tried. The thought of that scared me! I believed in myself so I decided to give it a try to see if it would work out.   

I left corporate to start my first food company called Origin Almond. I made fresh almond milk that we sold in the farmer’s market in south New Jersey. We grew from one table of 32 oz. of milk to distribution with Whole Foods, Walmart, and Kraft Heinz who was our earliest investor. When COVID-19 hit, our revenue declined by 80% in six weeks, mainly because our business was heavily based on foot traffic. We made the hard decision to shut down because we had no idea what was going on. I look back and I have so much gratitude for that moment. I didn’t get sick and my parents didn’t get sick either. We were relatively ok compared to what others were going through during this dark period. 

In April 2020, I read an article about how 20% of the frontline healthcare workers were Filipino. I wasn’t in the medical field but that article gave me the inspiration to learn more about the Filipino community. The data showed that at the time, Filipinos were the 2nd largest Asian American community and our cuisine is the fastest growing in the United States yet there’s almost zero representation of our delicious food in most grocery stores. Filipinos are the largest community in 11 states, including California. Yet, when you go to mainstream groceries like Whole Foods, Target, or Kroger – you don’t see Filipino food on the shelves. You have to go to the Asian grocery store, and it’s usually in the corner. Though, you have heard David Chang and Anthony Bourdain talking about how Filipino food is amazing and it’s going to blow up. Trader Joe’s is selling ube products like crazy! 

That’s when I decided, It’s time for the first Filipino-American food brand to be born! I wanted to give authentic representation to who we are as a culture and introduce our food to more people in a modern way, that’s true to heart. The recipes are based on my parents’ recipes. We launched the spring of COVID. I used my stimulus check to build some prototypes, then launched in retail stores over the summer. In the fall of 2020, we sold to our first customer which was Whole Foods. We started with our line with cooking sauces, then banana ketchup and our ube spread. We are building and expanding more products so that others can explore and enjoy more Filipino flavors. 

2. When you told your parents you were going to study art and go into the corporate world, and then become an entrepreneur, what was their response? 

I was blessed with very supportive parents. They’re non-traditional and they are very accepting and they believed in me and my brother. They supported us because they loved us. My parents are very loving and supportive, up until now. My mom is very proud of me! My mom is also a fan of Shark Tank. I was excited to see my mom’s reaction after watching me on the show. She’s super animated and she has the best reactions, which you can also find on our TikTok. 

3. How did you come up with the name Fila Manila? 

When I was coming up with the brand, I wanted a name that defines what the product is. It’s a new product for most of America. I wanted it to represent the Filipino-American community, and Manila is the capital of the Philippines. I wanted to name it something close to my heart. When you combine Fil-Am and Manila, you get Fila Manila. It rhymes and it’s a cute play on words! 

4. What makes Fila Manila different from all the other Filipino food/items out there? 

Our vision is to represent the next generation of Filipino-American flavors. We are the only Filipino-American food brand in town. We are so lucky with distribution because we are the only ones. Our product is filling the gap. Buyers don’t need another Indian or Thai curry. Filipino cuisine is growing and the data shows. 

Filipino food has had the stigma of not being the best quality. At Fila Manila, we focus on making food all natural, not highly processed yet tasty. Our products do not contain artificial colors or flavors, and are naturally gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan. They are also low or no-sugar and have no added MSG!   

5. What was the biggest obstacle you faced along the way while creating Fila Manila and how did you overcome it? 

I am still a firm believer that Filipino food is going to be the next big trend, on the come up. Think about Korean kimchi and Taiwanese boba tea when they were coming up. A bulk of the U.S. still needs a bit of education on what Filipino food is – they wonder if it’s spicy, where can they try it, is it Asian, is it Spanish? 

We are focusing on education in cities outside of Los Angeles, Jersey City, and other cities with large Filipino populations. We are looking at how we can position ourselves and educate others, and get them to try Filipino food. After we aired on Shark Tank, we learned our Banana Ketchup was our best seller because of the macros. We are half the sugar, calories and carbs of tomato ketchup. That’s what drew them in. How can we get non-Filipinos to try our food?  

6. It's surreal to see Filipino food in mainstream grocery stores like Whole Foods and Target. What made you realize that they were ready? 

They don’t even know they’re ready, until we tell them. I had all this data from my research about our community, what’s happening in pop culture, and Google trends search. Once you present the data to Whole Foods and Target, they are educated on the opportunities. Most of the buyers are not Asian. We have to present the problem and the solution, and that makes an easy match. 

I had a lot of contacts from my previous experience. I went through the daily grind, going through my contacts, cold calling, sending samples, going to trade shows, and everything in between. Thankfully I came from food marketing so I had some idea of where to start, but I was learning along the way when I started up my businesses. I know it’s very daunting, but the best way to approach complex problems is to take it step by step. I had to figure out each step, one step at a time. When I wanted to start the almond milk company, I just called the health inspectors. If you don’t know the answer, just ask. 

7. What kind of advice would you give to someone who is interested in entering the food industry? 

You can start as small as your local farmers market. Start small, make prototypes, make your logo and slap on your label. You’re going to keep evolving and changing your product. We changed Fila Manila six or seven times in the first two years. Start, learn, and keep reiterating. Once you’re comfortable, think about how you’re going to grow and scale your business. Start small and be open to changing and learning and figure out how it can fit what the market wants.  

8. How did you know what products to offer first? 

Every weekend when I was growing up, I went to eat at my cousin's house. With Fila Manila, I wanted to create something that represented us. Every meal, there was always adobo, caldereta, and kare kare at my cousins’ houses. At Fila Manila, we started out with cooking sauces, then we eventually moved into condiments like banana ketchup and ube spread. Ube is super popular right now, so it just made sense! 

9. What is one of the biggest lessons you've learned so far ever since starting Fila Manila? 

Getting too excited and getting so huge so fast! We got a call from one of the largest retailers to go into 450 stores. We jumped on the opportunity. We did well in Los Angeles, Northern California, and New York. But, we didn’t do well in the other regions. It’s not the case – if you build it, they will come. You have to educate people to get them to buy. That was a misstep on the company, so now we have to be more focused on the regions on which we distribute. Every day as an entrepreneur you are getting punched in the face, but you have to get up and keep walking along. 

10. How did you get on Shark Tank? 

I was always a big fan of the show. I admire the people who go on that show because they pour their soul out in front of the world! I applied to be on the show three times! I applied in 2021, and received no response. In 2022, they said we are too small to keep them up with the progress. In 2023, I let them know I was still alive and still in business. I went through the process, which was months of preparation and due diligence. It was pretty intense and it’s a lot of work. 

I heard this season of the show had more than 20,000 applicants, yet only a fraction of those were chosen and flown to LA to film. Even then, you may not even air on TV. I didn’t even tell my family until three weeks before the airing. I didn't think I was going to make it on the air because unfortunately, some of the pitches that filmed do not make it on air. 

11. What does it mean to be Filipino-American for you? 

It’s who I am, my culture, my family. It’s about time that we find our voice and be proud to say we are Filipino! We should be proud of who we are, our culture and our cuisine. That’s what we are trying to do through Fila Manila. It’s our own little way of contributing to being Filipino-American. 

12. What are you currently working on? 

Right off the heels on Shark Tank, online sales did really well. Online has been a big white space for us because we mostly did retail. In 2024, we want to continue to build our online presence, not just eCommerce and direct to consumers. We have been developing content and educating folks through online space. 

13. What else do you want to share with our readers?

Within the Filipino community, my hope and dream and wish is to have competitors. I want other entrepreneurs to come up and introduce our products to the rest of the United States masses. There’s so much opportunity. Learn from what I am doing now and my mistakes. I want you to be successful. Take the leap and step! Do it by taking small steps, come out there and compete with me! I will give you a frenemy hug! I want to help save people some stress, heartache and anxiety. In case something doesn’t work out, those people I helped may be my future bosses. 

I also started a nonprofit in 2023 called FoundersHeritage.org. It’s a community of founders specifically in the global flavors space. We connect with other founders. It’s free and we help each other on Slack and we occasionally have meetings. We ask and answer questions, listen, and learn from each others’ mistakes. I am an art student so I have to learn business from others. I am good at being a sponge, learning business from other people and paying it forward.  

14. Where can people find you? 

Website: https://FilaManila.com/

TikTok:  @FilaJake

Instagram:   @eatFilaManila

Facebook:  @eatFilaManila 

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Written by Jennifer Redondo

Co-Founder and Co-Author of In Her Purpose

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