Shopee teams up with FEATR for docuseries on Filipino entrepreneurs

Shopee and Filipino food and culture platform FEATR have teamed up on a new docuseries highlighting homegrown businesses in the Philippines.

Titled Grit Expectations, the series is presented by Shopee Kultura+ and produced by FEATR. It follows three Filipino businesses - Cacao Culture, Organic Options and FilDogScarf - examining how their founders have built ventures around local products, traditions and communities, and used digital commerce to expand beyond their immediate markets.

The collaboration puts the spotlight on a familiar challenge for small businesses: how to preserve the local identity behind a product while finding enough customers to make the business sustainable at scale.

Don't miss: Shopee marks a decade in the Philippines with star-studded holiday reunion

For Cacao Culture founders Shiela and Ken Reyes-Lao, that journey began after moving from Manila to Davao, where they discovered the potential of Philippine cacao and the communities producing it.

Rather than building another standalone chocolate brand, the couple developed Cacao Culture into a platform supporting more than 20 local chocolate brands, helping connect consumers with Philippine cacao and the businesses behind the country's growing chocolate industry.

At Organic Options, founders Mike and Malou Melendres have spent more than 25 years working with more than 300 smallholder farmers, while developing products designed to make healthier and safer food more accessible.

The third business featured is FilDogScarf, founded by Anilene Atanacio around a family tradition of Filipiniana craftsmanship.

Atanacio started the business with 2,500 pesos, running the operation herself on Shopee and applying traditional craftsmanship to handmade apparel for pets.

While the three businesses operate in very different categories, Grit Expectations presents a common growth story: local businesses can use eCommerce to reach customers well beyond their hometowns without abandoning the products, traditions and communities that shaped them.

Grit Expectations has been published on FEATR's YouTube channel.

From AI-powered marketing and the friction economy to retention-led growth, DMA Philippines 2026 on 29 September in Manila will bring together marketers to tackle the opportunities and challenges shaping the next phase of digital transformation.

Related articles:
Shopee regional marketing head departs
How 'Fulfilled by Shopee' is giving Philippine MSMEs more time to grow
Shopee and Ampersand Advisory clinch overall titles at PR Awards 2026