Featured Brand Partner: Made by Maxi

This week, we want to feature one of our amazing brand partners on the blog. We chose Made by Maxi PH, an organic nut butter brand owned by our fellow health and fitness advocate Maxine Qua. As a student, Maxine spent her free time joining various business student organizations where she mainly did marketing and advertising tasks. But Maxine was already eating healthily despite the long nights and stressful days of a college student, choosing to bring packed lunch and snacks with her everyday to school.

After graduating with her business degree from Ateneo de Manila University, she worked as a trader in a stock brokerage firm for four years before deciding to put up Made by Maxi PH. 2013 was the year she started working out and looking for alternative sources of protein for her post-workout snacks. It was then that she discovered her new obsession, nut butters. Once she had come up with her own perfect mixture, she decided to make it a sideline and sold them in bazaars for affordable prices. She started out with two flavors, Extra Dark Cacao and Toasted Macaroon Dark Cacao. Of course, some flavors weren’t successful and discontinued, like the Toasted Macaroon. “Coconut is a very acquired taste,” Maxine says.

Photo (c) Pepper.ph

Most flavors became bestsellers among her customers, like the Extra Dark Cacao Almond Butter, Maxine’s personal favorite. “I love this flavor because I get both the flavonoid antioxidant benefits of the cacao, as well as the macronutrient bang per calorie buck from the almonds themselves.” And when it comes to testing out new flavors for her brand, she turns to her friends, trusted clients, and family members to give her honest feedback. “I’m lucky to be surrounded by family members in various sectors of the food industry and count them as my inspiration and role models. Everything from their work ethic, to their drive, and down to their business strategies, are what keeps me on my toes and always learning. [...] I also look up to my fellow health tribe brands - Take Root, Superfood Grocer, to name a few. We all started out around the same time and look where we all are now. It just goes to show that having determination and passion for what you do will get you far.”

For other aspiring food entrepreneurs like Maxine was, she advises them to have a message or aspiration they want to share with the world through their brand. Through grace and grit, growing your brand with good quality products takes a lot of compromise but you should never compromise on the product quality you sell to your customers. Seeing them become happy because of your products should always be the highlight of any food entrepreneur’s day.