Cooking up Asean food & fashion

“Yes we now have a Penshoppe in Myanmar,” Ma Khine Zaw tells me as we were driving around the streets of Yangon late last year. I felt proud that this is a Filipino brand that has crossed over to Indochina, just like Oishi, another Philippine brand that has long expanded to China and many Southeast Asian countries.

Ma Khine and I first met in April 2014 while we both were attending the launch of ASEAN Women Entrepreneur’s Network (AWEN) as representatives or what is now called a focal point for each member-state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). AWEN was formally born in Hanoi and since then, we have had many meetings. She invited me to see Myanmar, in particular Mandalay, for textiles and for coffee.

The group of Ma Khine was approached by Golden ABC officials, owners of the brand Penshoppe, and other fashion brands like Oxygen, Tyler, Memo, among others. The Penshoppe group knew Myanmar was ready for a few stores.

The Earth Group, Ma Khine’s company, is a diversified conglomerate which had never done retail. But her daughter Khine Cho Myint (fondly called Ngenge) was assured by Penshoppe that they would get the support as a franchisee to learn retail and blaze the trail for fashion in Yangon, to begin the nationwide expansion.

In less than a year, true to Penshoppe’s predictions, the Earth Group has opened four stores in Myanmar, with more coming soon. They are serious about fashion retail, a challenge in a country where longyis are still worn by many, but whose opening to the world meant adapting to today’s fashion trends.

In my first visit to Yangon, then to Mandalay a few months later, I noticed people still sporting the yellow tint put on their faces called Tanaka instead of make up or powder. But with or without Tanaka, the Burmese were willing to adopt new styles and soon followed Asian trends of even getting local rock stars as endorsers. Last November, the actor Mario Maurer visited Myanmar to be Penshoppe’s endorser. And soon followed the next three stores, with the most recent one opening just two weeks ago.

As Khine Cho Myint says: “Penshoppe read our market well. The Burmese youth are more aware of fashion styles and Penshoppe updates their designs and displays almost every two weeks. Their approach is very dynamic and adapts to a young market like Myanmar,” she says.

The Penshoppe franchise is just one of the success stories of expansion of brands into other countries in ASEAN, which are similar in fashion needs yet diverse in cultural nuances and which franchisors easily adapt to. Penshoppe will have over 60 stores in international territories, while expanding to over 800 in the Philippines.

Ma Khine is beaming with joy as she talks not only about her daughter’s success in the retail business, but of their correct choice of which brand to open in Myanmar. She is so pleased that she called me one day to ask what I thought about another retail brand – food, this time – which she could also bring to the Burmese state.

Our meeting in the AWEN launch gave birth to a beautiful friendship. Shortly after the Yangon visit we went back to Myanmar in February, this time for coffee. Coffee harvest is best around early February as we went picking coffee cherries in the Sithar farm in Pyin Oo Lwin, an hour’s drive from Mandalay. Ma Khine also took us to the textile weavers in the area and we saw collaborations we can do for Great Women Brand, the women empowerment platform and brand that ECHOstore has started.

Great Women started to carry Myanmar’s weaves in its showroom in Manila last year and has discovered more sources in the outskirts of Mandalay.

Early last year we trained about a dozen women from ASEAN in coffee cupping and processing. One of the participants, Nanda Pok, went home to Cambodia and trained a young mother who was ready to put up not just a café, but a building to house what is now known as MOON Coffee. 

Nanda was featured by USAID in a video that went viral on how coffee training is shared among ASEAN women coffee farmers through the help of agencies like USAID and a private non-profit organization, the UPS Foundation.

Last July, I could not believe my eyes when I visited the Cambodian capital. Our four-day training has given birth to a beautiful new coffee shop in downtown Phnom Penh and the owner tendered lunch to celebrate meeting us, the trainors. Nanda Pok was around to tell the story of how our training made her teach other women, including this café owner, and how she passed on the lessons and produced this result.

This is proof that there is so much to share with our ASEAN counterparts and in turn make ASEAN a better player in coffee, textiles, coconut and other commonalities.

The Philippines, on the other hand, can still learn a thing or two from our neighbors. We can learn how to weave silk and combine it with our Inabel and other weaves. We can make an ASEAN blend of coffees from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

But to do this we must get to know each other. And that’s exactly what we will do from Aug. 28 to 31 at the PICC in Pasay City. The ASEAN Women Business Conference will bring together 600 women (and some men) to exchange ideas, products and technology to further improve the incomes and access to markets of these women entrepreneurs.

And that’s what women cook up when they get together. Food, fashion and more. Not to compete but to collaborate and make their businesses more agile and competitive, not just for ASEAN, but also for the world.

For more information, email [email protected] or find us in Facebook: AWEN and Twitter: @awen_asean