At Bella's Bites, we take both great care as well as pride in our selection of suppliers and the products we use. So what is important to us? One word - you. At Bella's we have a simple philosophy. We won't serve you what we wouldn't serve ourselves. We won't use ingredients for you that we would be reluctant to use for ourselves.
But what does that mean in reality? When we choose ingredients, we look for quality, food safety and source.
Source is simple - where the ingredient meets our quality and food safety criteria, we will choose local products to help support the Philippine farmers and economy. It also means that the produce is the most fresh, as it is bought at the closest time to picking in the case of fruit and vegetables.
Food safety - where the product is made and comes from is weighed by ensuring the location has strong food safety and hygiene standards. For grown products, the quality of the soil and use of pesticides is also of utmost importance.
And of course the quality of the product is important - great tasting food comes from great quality ingredients.
Below are some examples of our purchasing policy as the best ways of explaining it in practice.
At Bella's we choose Harvey Fresh milk whenever we can get it. And that sometimes means much traveling across Cebu to find suppliers! Why not local? The local dairy industry in the Philippines is quite small and the availability of fresh milk hard to come by. Especially for our coffee and milk shakes, the use of good quality, consistent fat content milk is important. In our testing, Harvey Fresh milk provides a consistently great frothing quality and tastes great. It is made with Australian milk and imported directly, so Australia's very high standards of food safety and hygiene are not compromised as no reprocessing in other countries occurs. Harvey Fresh is made with dairy cows that are free range on Australian grasses on Australian soils. So there is no risk of heavy metals and pesticides entering the food chain (*Australian farmers use pesticides but their use is monitored by the government food authorities and animals that may be at risk of grazing on treated areas are restricted from entering the food supply). More information is available at Harvey Fresh's website.
At Bella's we also choose to use San Remo pasta. San Remo is a company that was founded by an Italian in the South Australian state more than 75 years ago and has prospered ever since, making quality durum wheat pasta. We chose San Remo after trying many different pasta manufacturers and found their product has a great taste and a consistent texture. In fact, we have had some Italians comment on the great taste of our pasta. More information is available at San Remo's website.
We use a lot of citrus at Bella's, from our juices and our ice crushes to our cooking. We purchase our citrus from countries that have reliable supply of quality product. These include Australia, USA and South Africa. The citrus production in the Philippines is small and therefore we are limited in being able to purchase from the local product. However we deliberately choose as much of our fruit and vegetables to be as local as possible.
We also use green apples in our drinks and our yummy moist apple cake. The best apples for cooking are Granny Smith apples, which happened to be created just a short distance from where this author grew up! Where possible we use our fruit and vegetables from countries such as the Philippines, Australia, USA, and European countries. We deliberately avoid purchasing from countries where soil pollution and lack of published accountability for pesticide and fertiliser use is a factor. Whilst these may produce nice looking food that is quickly grown, the result though is tasteless fruit that may be harmful to our health, and that isn't what we want.
We have to use some products that are processed. So what are we thinking when we choose one product over another? We look into their ingredients to see that there is NO MSG used and look to ensure content is not driven by sugars and fats and artificial colours and flavours. But where possible, we choose to make our products from the base ingredients for the simple reason that this is the easiest way to ensure a quality meal for you. So this means we make our own stocks and our own salad dressings.
Sometimes these factors means we pay more for our produce and ingredients and we do our best to ensure that you have don't have to make a choice between great quality and cost. Bella's motto is simple - "because...don't you deserve better?". And the end result? A tasty, quality meal for you to enjoy and relax knowing that we are taking care of you.
So there is only one thing you need to do - come in and enjoy our great tasting food and drinks.
*** Note that no manufacturer asked us to reference us for this article and none provide any incentive to use their products.
