THE government must support programs that would equip entrepreneurs with the skills for starting a business, a co-founder of a restaurant chain said on Saturday.

“Start with the grassroots, meaning [in] education,” Rommel Ng, co-founder of Buffalo’s Wings N’ Things, said during his guesting at the “Business and Politics” program hosted by The Manila Times Chairman and CEO Dante “Klink’ Ang 2nd.

“Even if you want to help entrepreneurs, if they’re not equipped, the help would just go to waste. So I think it needs to start with the fundamental level of education, in terms of formal education and options outside of formal education,” Ng said.

He underlined the need for aspiring entrepreneurs to gain sufficient industry exposure, pointing out that universities and colleges only offer limited courses on the subject, particularly in the restaurant business. “Aside from hotel and restaurant management and culinary

courses, there’s a lack of particular courses pertaining to restaurant businesses in formal education or the academe,” Ng said.

“I think there needs to be more review and analysis on how to educate [and] provide options for education for Filipinos who are interested to go into the field,” he said.

While there were governmentinitiated conferences locally, Ng said restaurant entrepreneurs must also be given the chance to join trade visits to other countries.

He said these initiatives could help the country’s restaurant industry be recognized globally, noting the amount of talent Filipinos could offer amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

“We’re moving into the AI and robotic periods. So, I think our government agencies can help the Filipino restaurant operators be more equipped in terms of how these trends would affect the industry and how it would also prevent job loss,” he said.

Ng believed that the government should also provide more assistance to the local supply chain to help restaurants meet the demands of consumers.

The government “can also step in and provide support for the local poultry industry [and] the other processes leading towards being consumed in the restaurant,” he said.

Ng, whose Buffalo’s Wings N’ Things chain includes 40 restaurants across the country, said he observed that the poultry sector has been under “a lot of pressure” to make up for the shortage of beef and pork supplies.

“We don’t have a cattle industry that can provide us the beef; it’s almost all imported. Then we have a pork supply now that’s been troubled for the past few years because of the swine [fever],” he noted.

He insisted it is about time the government reviews its trade agreements, reiterating that there are still some countries that ban poultry exports to the Philippines.

“I think those old laws can be reviewed now, especially with the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) integration. In the Asean region, there’s a lot of supply of chicken, but you don’t have access to that,” Ng said.

“So maybe it’s an updating of the trade agreements and the laws so that we can really support the restaurants, which I think even during the pandemic and up to now, we still grow by numbers,” he said.