Every month, Hong Kong executive Jenna Sung would fly to the Philippines and together with her colleagues — chat over buckets of Chicken Joy.
Sung and her company where she is managing director, OpenRice, are convinced that Filipino food is “amazing,” which is why recently, they launched the “ultimate dining app” OpenRice in the country.
“Filipinos love to eat and they have amazing food here, so it’s actually the perfect market for us,” Sung said during the program.
“So this is the perfect market to launch and Filipinos are very tech-savvy! Everyone’s on TikTok and so this makes us the perfect dining app, for search and booking for new dining experiences.”
Initially started as a food blog in 1999, OpenRice is the English translation for the Cantonese greeting for bon appetit that the Chinese say to each other before eating. It is also similar to the Japanese greeting before dining, Sung explained to DAILY TRIBUNE.
“Actually in 1999, you know, internet was a new thing and blogs were getting popular, so it started off as a blog, so as a blog, yes, so people were writing reviews, writing their thoughts, what they thought of the restaurant, and so we’ve slowly turned it into restaurant details, making it searchable and building the habit,” she recalled.
From 1999 onwards, the then blog focused a lot on building content and user stickiness, then eight years ago, they launched a business app to help restaurants manage their bookings, services, vouchers and so on. The app continues to evolve to also now helping restaurants with recruitment and payments which, during the pandemic, became “the perfect way for people to order lunches and self-pickup,” Sung said.
“We’ve been around for the last 25 years actually… And then moving on, we slowly launched our services overseas and last year, we launched video reels, so before it was only a review.”
According to Sung, even customers with existing food ordering apps can benefit greatly from their app because it offers “more business solutions in helping users find restaurants and the best deals” among 19,000 restaurants in Metro Manila alone.
“It’s not just very simple restaurant names,” she assured customers. “We actually verify every single one of them. They have restaurant details, opening hours, phone numbers, signature dishes and so on.”
Customers can leave not only text and photo reviews, but reel video reviews as well. “We actually work with TikTok and OpenRice was one of the first app platforms to be chosen by ByteDance to use that technology,” Sung claimed. “So all the videos that you see on the app is actually powered by TikTok technology and three months ago we launched Mall Directory, so eating and shopping go hand in hand.”
What’s more, users can use the app not only to book restaurants in the Philippines, but in all eight to nine countries and counting where the app is available, including Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Thailand and Singapore.
“It’s not that often that you know you can claim to have 4,000 bookable restaurants in Hong Kong, 50,000 in Japan. So I think this is something that we’re very proud of,” Sung affirmed.
On top of these, the app provides a rewards and demerit system for both users and restaurants. For simply showing up at a reservation, with no minimum purchase required, a user earns six rewards points per reserved seat. Six hundred points, for instance, can already be used to exchange for a burger or other rewards listed in the app, said Sung.
Users, however, are also verified for the security of their identities and bank details, and also penalized or could lose points and status for no-shows and other offenses if reported by the restaurants, Sung explained.
According to her, for now, reward points can only be claimed at the country where the points were made, but they are working on a system that would enable users to use the points at any country the app is in, Sung noted.
“In the Philippines, we’re going to be building this this year and moving forward,” she attested.
“Our main goal is to help users find restaurants, discounts, make life easier for them and also the most important thing is help restaurants get business.”