The Moment Group's co-founder and creative director Abba Napa shares her perspective on what the future holds, and tell us what she has learned.
To say that Abba Napa is an industrious woman would be an understatement. She is one-third of the founding team at The Moment Group along with Eliza Antonino and Jon Syjuco, and operates as creative director.
Established only in 2012, the company now takes care of 2,500 employees and proudly houses 12 food brands with 45 locations. Under their umbrella are local home-grown brands like 8Cuts Burgers, Manam Comfort Filipino, Ooma Bold New Japanese, as well as global names like Din Tai Fung.
The Moment Group seems to have done quite well during the pandemic, having come up with a variety of brand new products and initiatives like Moment The Grocer and their own delivery fleet, Mo’Go. Tech-ing up did not seem like that large of a struggle for these restaurateurs as they launched their own website and their restaurants were among the first few to get food deliveries started.
Learn about Abba’s perspective and her learnings from the last year:
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How did the dining scene change for you/your company in 2020?
From a conceptual standpoint, what we do at Moment is [to] create experiences that allow people to converge and that exact thing that we create for became impossible to do with this kind of a health pandemic. This was a challenging process for us to wrap our heads around as we went through it. But we realised that converging doesn't just have to mean around a table in these times. We can converge over a bed tray, a cubicle desk, sitting on the grass in a park, or even over our own laps while in the seat of our car—be it with the ones we shelter in place with, or virtually, with those we sorely miss. So, throughout this pandemic, we have not stopped creating food that can work for this kind of moment.
What measures did you implement at your restaurants?
Moment's first priority has been to keep everybody (team members, diners, and delivery partners alike) safe, healthy, and nourished. Our food safety and sanitation policies, which were already in place during regular shop operations, have been heightened and aligned with the standards for restaurants operating in the context of a pandemic.
These are all captured in a bible of policies and practices which we call “Project Safe”. Daily measures include a "health roll call" via the Moment family tree of communications, a mandatory health check prior to entering Moment’s ecosystem (shops, central kitchens, HQ), wearing of protective gear, frequent hand-washing, contactless service, regular disinfection and proper sanitation.
It does take more time to prepare an order now, given the extra special steps that happen in between, but these are the extra steps we must take to ensure the health and safety of its community as it brings nourishment and the Moment experience to those who need it.
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