From Small to Scalable: Designing the System Behind a Growing F&B Brand
From Small to Scalable: Designing the System Behind a Growing F&B Brand
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Introduction | Business Expansion Requires Structural Evolution
Introduction | Business Expansion Requires Structural Evolution
Most businesses begin with an individual or a small team. As sales grow, responsibilities multiply, and people get busier, one silent question emerges:
Can your structure actually support your growth?
In the early stages, success often depends on effort, speed, and improvisation. But once a business starts expanding, those same habits become structural weaknesses. Growth without structure is simply “making chaos bigger.”
True expansion isn’t just about higher revenue —
it’s about upgrading organization, process, and decision flow in sync with scale.
At the same time, the founder’s own role must evolve.
As the business upgrades, the founder must also upgrade.
Many F&B founders start as chefs or operators,
but struggle when they move into management.
They continue leading with a “hands-on mindset”
in an environment that now demands systems, delegation, and governance. As a result, they become trapped in the very business they built — working harder, but not necessarily leading better.
Some are excellent technicians forced into managerial roles.
Others grow the company faster than their leadership capacity,
falling into what I call the “misaligned authority gap.”
Through this journey, I learned two key truths:
1️⃣ An organization must evolve structurally as it expands.
2️⃣ A founder must evaluate their own capacity and choose the right position within that structure.
Only when both the system and the individual evolve together
can a business grow sustainably — supported by structure, not burdened by it.
This article chronicles how KulaiDelicacy grew from a two-person kitchen into a structured operation — and how it later returned to a lean, sustainable model without losing its system. It’s a story of how scaling up taught me the meaning of “scalable thinking.”
Phase 1: Two Partners + Small Helpers | From “Doing Everything” to “Designing How It’s Done”
Phase 1: Two Partners + Small Helpers | From “Doing Everything” to “Designing How It’s Done”
The beginning was the simplest and the messiest stage.
There were only two partners — myself and my co-founder — plus a few part-time helpers. They handled basic support work: cleaning, packing, and delivery.
I managed product development, purchasing, training, and logistics.
My partner handled finance and customer communication.
Our days were a blur of non-stop tasks — taking orders, prepping ingredients, cooking, packing, and reconciling sales. Everything relied on verbal instructions and memory. It was fast, flexible… and constantly on the verge of breaking down.
💡“Efficiency built on people alone is never stable.”
To move past this fragility, I started creating a basic operating structure. Instead of hiring more people, I focused on improving workflow to reduce dependence on manpower.
Key Actions in This Stage
Key Actions in This Stage
Defined Core Processes – wrote down every essential task, from preparation to dispatch.
Introduced Basic Tools – replaced handwritten notes with a POS app and spreadsheets.
Built Simple Online Systems – created a basic ordering webpage and auto-reply via Telegram for customers.
These changes turned intuition-driven work into process-driven operations. Errors dropped sharply, and daily communication became smoother.
Organization Chart (Phase 1):
This stage marked the seed of systemization — not yet efficient, but finally structured.
Phase 2: Small Team Formation & Initial Management | From “Everyone Helps” to “Clear Roles”
Phase 2: Small Team Formation & Initial Management | From “Everyone Helps” to “Clear Roles”
By the end of the first year, growth demanded reorganization.
We relocated to a larger kitchen and formally introduced the concept of “Teams.”
Our staff count grew to around ten people: five to six in the kitchen and three to four in support roles (customer service, packing, logistics).
Major Actions & Changes
Major Actions & Changes
Team Concept & Role Division
Kitchen Team: focused on product quality and consistency.
Support Team: handled orders, procurement, packaging, and delivery.
Each team had defined responsibilities to prevent overlaps.
SOPs & Training System
I created step-by-step SOPs — covering hygiene, cooking, packaging, and customer communication.
All new staff received structured training before taking independent shifts.Skill-Based Pay System
We launched a tiered salary structure — the more skills an employee mastered, the higher their pay level.
This encouraged learning and flexibility.Office Concept
As operations became complex, we separated administration from production.
Office tasks such as record-keeping and monitoring moved away from the kitchen floor,
creating a clear operational boundary between production and coordination.
Organizational Evolution
Organizational Evolution
Team Model:
Early Department Model:
The result was our first functional organization.
Workflows became stable, communication improved, and tasks were traceable.
However, it also revealed new challenges:
Skill gaps between employees;
Ongoing training pressure;
Founders still deeply involved in execution.
This stage was the foundation — necessary, but still people-dependent. The next step would be transforming this structure into a self-running system.
Phase 3: Departmentalization & Industrialized Operations | From “Team Effort” to “System Engine”
Phase 3: Departmentalization & Industrialized Operations | From “Team Effort” to “System Engine”
With monthly revenue exceeding 2 million pesos,
KulaiDelicacy entered the stage of full departmentalization.
Our ambition: run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The new facility was built like a production floor —
dedicated sections for prep, cooking, packing, delivery, and office work.
It marked a clear transition from “kitchen logic” to “factory logic.”
Key Developments
Key Developments
1.Established Departmental Structure
2.System & Data Integration
POS and website ordering fully synchronized.
Inventory auto-alert system enabled.
Finance and revenue reports semi-automated.
CRM and membership database launched.
3.Middle Management Layer
Department heads were assigned.
Daily and weekly reporting began, reducing direct dependence on founders.
4.Company-Wide SOP Framework
SOPs extended to every function — kitchen, packing, delivery, finance, and customer service.
These changes transformed KulaiDelicacy into a small-scale, data-driven F&B operation.
Plan Interrupted: Policy Shock & Team Crisis
Plan Interrupted: Policy Shock & Team Crisis
Just as everything came together, two major crises hit:
a sudden policy change that wiped out our main customer base,
and a labor complaint (the Jhon incident) that disrupted internal stability.
The double impact forced us to pause expansion,
shut down the night shift, and abandon the 24/7 operation plan.
We transitioned into defensive mode — leading to the next phase: restructuring for survival.
Phase 4: One Partner + Two Employees | Streamlined & Self-Sustaining System
Phase 4: One Partner + Two Employees | Streamlined & Self-Sustaining System
The policy shift nearly collapsed the market. I launched a strategic contraction, reducing the twenty-person team to just two employees — preserving the essential core while minimizing cost.
It wasn’t downsizing out of panic, but a deliberate redesign to create a Minimum Viable Operating System (MVO).
Key Adjustments
Key Adjustments
Simplified Menu – kept only high-margin, high-repeat dishes.
Lean Procurement Model – introduced small-batch, frequent purchasing and zero-inventory strategy.
Integrated Systems – unified POS, finance, stock, and customer databases for daily reporting.
Refined SOPs – retained only essential workflows that directly affected output.
Re-trained Staff – two key employees were trained to operate independently across all functions.
Final Organization Chart (Phase 4):
Despite the scale reduction, the operation remained profitable and fully autonomous.
After my exit, the system continued functioning with minimal supervision.
It became the ultimate test of whether the structure could survive without its creator — and it did.
Mistake & Reflection: The Cost of Losing Talent
Mistake & Reflection: The Cost of Losing Talent
In hindsight, I made one key mistake — to control expenses, I let go of core trained employees too early.Their departure created a “knowledge gap.” The system stayed, but the human expertise that made it dynamic was gone. When the market recovered later, we no longer had the capacity to scale back up quickly.
💡“A system can preserve efficiency, but it can’t preserve experience.”
That lesson reshaped how I think about structure: a sustainable system must retain both its process and its people memory.
The System Pyramid | Turning Experience Into Method
The System Pyramid | Turning Experience Into Method
After years of building, scaling, and restructuring, I began to see clear patterns in how systems evolve. Every successful stage shared one principle: structure grows in layers. From roles to processes, from data to sustainability — each layer strengthens the one above it.
At the foundation lies the Role Layer — the need to define ownership and authority. A system without clear responsibility is chaos disguised as teamwork. Every project must start with a clear charter, outlining who decides what and why.
Once roles are defined, the Process Layer takes shape.
This is where individual experience turns into documented procedure — SOPs, training manuals, and workflows that make outcomes consistent no matter who performs the task.
Next comes the Data Layer, where work becomes measurable.
When performance, cost, and output are tracked through dashboards and KPIs, decisions shift from emotion to evidence.
Data transforms management from “guessing” into “governing.”
At the top sits the Sustainability Layer — the ability of the system to continue running even when people change. This means documentation, handover files, and retraining programs that preserve organizational memory.
When these four layers align — roles, processes, data, and sustainability — a business develops true resilience. It no longer relies on individuals but on the logic of its structure. That is when a small business becomes truly scalable.
Conclusion | Structure Is the Foundation of Growth
Conclusion | Structure Is the Foundation of Growth
From two people to twenty and back to two, I witnessed the rise, collapse, and reconstruction of a system.
True longevity doesn’t come from luck or demand — it comes from a structure strong enough to absorb change.
Revenue can be repeated.
Luck cannot be controlled.
Structure is what keeps a business stable in between.
The speed of expansion must never exceed the pace of structural maturity. Otherwise, growth becomes nothing more than scaled-up disorder.
A founder’s greatest challenge isn’t working harder, but learning to step back and design the system that replaces them.
This isn’t a success story — it’s a record of clarity. A brand that outlives its founder doesn’t depend on passion, but on structure and adaptability.
Scalability isn’t about having more people — it’s about making sure anyone can do the right thing within the same system.
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