A Chef’s Story of Service: Inside a BLT Central Kitchen Serving Communities in Roxas City

Roxas City, Philippines. September 15, 2026. – Long before the school bell rings, Antonio Sotto Apolinar Jr. is already in the kitchen, stirring pots, checking trays, and preparing hundreds of warm meals. While the Roxas City BLT Central Kitchen has long served communities in need, it has also expanded its support to public school children through DepEd’s School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP), delivering nutritious meals to schools across the city.

Antonio grew up in the kitchen, helping in his family’s carinderia since the 1980s and learning to cook as early as Grade 6. Over the years, he ran his own carinderia and took on various livelihoods, building on the kitchen experience that would eventually lead him to the Busog, Lusog, Talino (BLT) Central Kitchen in Roxas City.
Before joining the program, Antonio’s path to the BLT Central Kitchen was shaped by a lifetime of working with food. After growing up helping in his family’s carinderia, he went on to run his own small eatery, sell school supplies, and work as a merchandiser in Cebu.
His turning point came in 2021, during the pandemic and Typhoon Paeng, when he volunteered at the BLT Central Kitchen in Roxas City. What began as a reluctant decision soon became a source of purpose and fulfillment as he found meaning in preparing meals for children who often had little to eat.

“Naawa ako sa mga batang nasa kalye, hindi pumapasok dahil sa hirap ng buhay. Nang malaman ko ang BLT, hindi na ako nagdalawang-isip.” (“I felt bad for the kids on the streets who couldn’t go to school because of poverty. When I learned about BLT, I didn’t think twice about joining.”)

Hunger and the Filipino Youth

As many Filipino families continue to face rising living costs and economic pressures, keeping children in school has become increasingly difficult. For many learners, a simple meal can make the difference between attending class ready to learn or missing school altogether.

Studies on school feeding programs have shown that providing regular meals can improve students’ cognitive performance by 13% to 16%, [MC3.1]demonstrating how addressing hunger can help children focus, participate in class, and learn more effectively.

Recognizing that hunger is one of the barriers preventing children from learning, the Jollibee Group Foundation (JGF), in close partnership with the Department of Education (DepEd) launched the Busog, Lusog, Talino (BLT) program in 2007. Beginning with a small cohort of undernourished Grade 1 pupils at Manuel L. Quezon Elementary School in Tondo, Manila, the program was designed to help children stay in school by ensuring they could better participate in learning.

Over the years, the initiative evolved into the BLT Central Kitchen model—a community-based system that prepares and distributes meals to clusters of nearby schools from a single kitchen. The centralized approach enables schools and communities to implement feeding programs more efficiently while allowing teachers to focus on education and learning.

Today, 41 BLT Central Kitchens are active, supporting continuous implementation of DepEd’s feeding program. Since its inception, BLT has reached over 270,000 students, helping ensure that children have the energy to stay in school, participate in class, and learn better. In 2025 alone, BLT kitchens served meals to nearly 43,382 students across 300 schools nationwide[MC4.1]. Reports from DepEd and school partners have also observed encouraging changes among students who receive daily meals, including better health, increased attentiveness, and more active participation in class.

While the Central Kitchen in Roxas City initially focused on community beneficiaries, it began extending support to DepEd’s School-Based Feeding Program beneficiaries in 2024. A second BLT Central Kitchen has already been completed. Once operational, the new facility will be dedicated to serving additional schools, enabling the city to expand its support for school-based feeding and reach more children in need.

A Heart for Service

Today, Antonio works alongside parent volunteers and kitchen staff to coordinate meal preparation, manage supplies, and ensure timely delivery to partner schools.

“Lahat kami may assignment. May taga-luto, taga-deliver, taga-kuha ng ingredients. Kailangan tulungan talaga,” he shared. (“All of us have our assignments—someone cooks, someone delivers, someone sources ingredients. We really have to work together.”)

That spirit of shared responsibility is at the heart of the BLT Central Kitchen model. Beyond preparing meals, the program brings together DepEd, local governments, schools, parents, and private sector partners to build community-based feeding systems that support vulnerable community members while helping more children stay in school and continue learning.

For Antonio, however, daily motivation remains simple. “Napamahal na sa akin ang mga bata, kahit hindi ko sila kilala isa-isa.” (“I’ve come to care for the children, even if I don’t know each of them personally.”)

His story reflects what the BLT Program has always been about: bringing communities together so more Filipino children can stay in school, participate fully in class, and build a better future through education. Through the BLT Central Kitchen Program, the Jollibee Group Foundation continues to strengthen community-based school feeding systems that support children’s learning while advancing the Jollibee Group’s Joy for Tomorrow agenda of creating lasting, positive impact for Filipino families

Parent volunteers and kitchen staff prepare meals at the Roxas Central Kitchen, which serves community beneficiaries and public school children through a coordinated feeding system designed for large-scale meal production and delivery.

Antonio at JGF’s 20th Year Partner’s Appreciation Night, which brought together program partners to celebrate shared achievements and recognize their contributions over the past two decades.

Freshly prepared meals are distributed from the BLT Central Kitchen in Roxas City to nearby partner schools, as part of a centralized feeding model that supports efficient meal distribution across multiple schools.