By Janvie Soqueña Amido

We tell Filipinos to become entrepreneurs. Start small, we say. Turn that family recipe into a business. Transform local produce into something people will buy. Innovate. Join a trade fair. Sell at a pop-up. Build your brand. Support local. And when the product finally begins gaining customers, we tell the entrepreneur to dream bigger: get into supermarkets, supply hotels and restaurants, find distributors, expand outside the region and perhaps someday export. It sounds like the natural progression of a growing enterprise. But somewhere between the kitchen and the supermarket shelf, many small entrepreneurs encounter a completely different side of doing business: regulation.

For food entrepreneurs, growth eventually means confronting FDA requirements. These requirements exist for good reason. Food safety should never be negotiable. A consumer buying bottled sauce made by a small entrepreneur deserves the same protection as someone buying a product manufactured by a multinational company. This is not an argument for lowering standards or creating shortcuts for MSMEs. If anything, we should want our homegrown products to meet high standards because that is how they earn consumer confidence and become competitive in bigger markets. The question is whether we are helping small entrepreneurs reach those standards and, equally important, whether government processes their applications quickly enough once they do.

Talk to entrepreneurs who have gone through the process and you will eventually hear stories about waiting. Months can pass. In some cases, businesses say the process has stretched much longer. There can be deficiencies that need to be corrected, additional documents requested, technical issues to resolve, and legitimate reasons why an application cannot simply be approved. We should acknowledge that. But when processing becomes prolonged and unpredictable, we also have to ask whether something in the system needs fixing.

For a startup, time has a very different meaning. A large corporation can probably survive a regulatory delay. It has lawyers, regulatory personnel, consultants, established distribution and enough working capital to continue operating. The small entrepreneur producing several hundred bottles every month does not have that luxury. A few months can mean losing a supermarket opportunity. A longer delay can mean packaging sitting unused, capital tied up in inventory, or a potential distributor simply deciding to look elsewhere. By the time the approval comes, the opportunity may already be gone.

And this is what worries me. We often think of MSME support in terms of training, financing, equipment, mentoring and trade fairs. We spend money helping entrepreneurs develop products and giving them spaces where customers can discover them. But if, after successfully navigating all those interventions, the entrepreneur becomes stuck at the regulatory stage, then we have essentially built a road that ends before the destination.

Apparently, this concern has already reached the national government. In April 2026, Congress, the Anti-Red Tape Authority, the FDA and industry representatives met to discuss regulatory reforms amid a reported backlog of more than 18,000 pending applications across FDA regulatory processes. The discussions included faster processing, digitalization and reducing red tape, and were linked to the administration’s broader push to streamline government transactions. That number should make us pay attention. It does not mean all 18,000 are food-product registrations or applications from startups, but it does tell us that delays and backlogs are not simply stories being exchanged among frustrated entrepreneurs. There is a system-level problem being acknowledged.

The FDA has also been pursuing digitalization and streamlining. Services have moved online, and the agency has introduced electronic processes and information resources intended to make transactions easier. Those are welcome developments. But we should remember that putting a government process online does not automatically make the process simple. A complicated process viewed through a computer screen can still be a complicated process.

For a first-time food entrepreneur, even knowing where to begin can be intimidating. What authorization do I need? Is my production facility compliant? Is my label correct? What technical documents are required? Does my product need laboratory testing? What happens if my application is deficient? Who do I talk to when I do not understand what is being requested? Experienced corporations employ people specifically to answer these questions. A microentrepreneur is often the owner, production manager, salesperson, bookkeeper, delivery person and regulatory officer rolled into one.

Perhaps this is where government can do better. Instead of another general seminar about FDA registration, why not create an actual FDA-readiness pathway for promising micro and small food enterprises? Take the entrepreneur’s real product and work through what is missing. Look at the production process. Check the packaging and label. Identify the regulatory gaps. Connect the entrepreneur with food technologists, laboratories and technical assistance where needed. Help the business understand and complete the requirements properly before the application is submitted.

This should not be FDA’s job alone. DTI, DOST, LGUs, universities, local economic development offices and business organizations all have roles to play. We already have many of the pieces. What entrepreneurs need is for those pieces to work together. Imagine an entrepreneur being told, “Your product has potential, but these are the five things preventing you from becoming FDA-ready. Let us work on them.” That is far more useful than sending someone from seminar to seminar and office to office hoping they eventually figure everything out.

But there must also be accountability on the government side. Entrepreneurs cannot demand immediate approval of incomplete applications or products that fail to meet safety requirements. At the same time, government cannot expect a compliant entrepreneur to wait indefinitely. Accountability has to work both ways. The entrepreneur must submit what is required; government must process a complete application within a reasonable and predictable period.

Perhaps we should also start publishing and discussing the numbers that really matter. What is the actual average processing time for different FDA applications? How many are completed within the timelines government itself promises? How many remain pending beyond those periods? Where are applications getting stuck? What are the most common deficiencies among MSMEs? If thousands of applications are pending, what is the concrete plan and timetable for clearing them? These are not questions meant to attack an agency. They are questions we should ask if we are serious about improving the environment for doing business.

We spend a great deal of time celebrating how many MSMEs we have helped start. Perhaps it is time to become equally interested in how many we help graduate. How many homegrown food businesses became regulatory-ready? How many successfully entered formal retail? How many expanded production after receiving their approvals? How many created jobs? How many promising local products made the journey from a kitchen or small production room to supermarket shelves?

That is where regulation and entrepreneurship policy must meet.

The solution is not to lower the bar for local products. The solution is to help more local entrepreneurs reach it. Protect consumers. Require quality. Demand compliance. But make the pathway understandable, accessible and efficient.

Our entrepreneurs also have responsibilities: make safe products, follow the rules, complete the requirements and invest in quality. But government has responsibilities too: make the rules understandable, provide timely technical support, fix unnecessary bottlenecks and process compliant applications predictably.

If we are serious when we tell Filipinos to innovate, formalize and scale, then we must also be serious about ensuring that the machinery of government does not become the very thing preventing them from doing so.

Help entrepreneurs reach the bar. And when they finally do, don’t make them spend months—or years—waiting at the door.