They Started With Custom Cakes, Survived a Pandemic, and Built Sugarshack Around Their Daughter Named Miracle

Sugarshack did not begin with a business plan. It began in 2016 with Althea Mae Pelien and her husband, Garryboy Pelien, two people who loved making food that made other people happy.

They started small, crafting custom cakes out of their home. Birthday cakes. Wedding cakes. Celebration cakes. Each one a small act of care: someone chose this family to make something meaningful for their most important moments. Every dessert that left their kitchen carried more than sugar and flour. It carried the particular warmth of food made by people who genuinely wanted the person on the other end to feel something good.

For several years, that was enough. A side hustle. A creative outlet. A source of quiet, consistent joy shared between a husband and wife who found their common language in the kitchen.

Then 2020 arrived, and quiet joy was not a business strategy anymore.

When the Pandemic Validated the Business

The pandemic turned out to be an unexpected turning point for Sugarshack, though not in the way many small businesses experienced it.

As people spent more time at home and searched for ways to celebrate life’s important moments despite restrictions, demand for customized cakes surged. Orders arrived almost every day. What had started as a side hustle suddenly showed signs that it could become something much bigger.

For Althea and Garryboy, the experience was validating. Customers were not simply buying cakes. They were choosing Sugarshack to be part of birthdays, milestones, and family gatherings during one of the most uncertain periods in recent history. The consistency of demand gave them confidence that the business was no longer just a passion project.

It was during this period that they made one of the biggest decisions of their lives: leaving their corporate careers and committing to Sugarshack full-time.

The decision was not driven by necessity. It was driven by conviction. The market had spoken, and the response was clear. People valued what they were creating. The question was no longer whether Sugarshack could become a real business. The question was how far they could take it.

The Daughter Who Changed Everything

In 2023, Althea and Garryboy's story took a turn that no business model could have written.

After being diagnosed with endometriosis, Althea gave birth to a daughter. She and Garryboy named her Mireya Esti. The name carries two meanings: "God's miracle" and "star."

That name was chosen with full knowledge of what it had taken to earn it. Endometriosis is a condition that often complicates or prevents pregnancy, and for Althea, the birth of Mireya felt like nothing less than a direct answer to years of waiting, praying, and trusting in something beyond what medicine could guarantee. Mireya was not just a baby. She was evidence that seasons of waiting can end in something more beautiful than what was hoped for.

Mireya did not just change the Romero-Pelien family. She changed the direction of Sugarshack entirely.

As new parents, Althea and Garryboy began looking at their business through a different lens. Customized cakes had helped them build Sugarshack, but they also demanded long hours, intricate designs, and constant attention to deadlines. Raising a young family required a different rhythm.

Rather than continue building around highly customized orders, they started exploring products that aligned with both their lifestyle and their long-term vision. They wanted to create food that busy people could enjoy easily, whether during a quick break at work, a quiet moment at home, or a small celebration in the middle of an ordinary day.

That shift led to the development of products such as Snack Cakes, Artisanal Ice Creams, and Mango Kimchi, products designed not only around quality and flavor but around convenience and everyday enjoyment.

What Sugarshack Actually Builds

The tagline is "Taste Happiness," and Althea means it with precision.

For Althea and Garryboy, that idea became even more important after becoming parents. If life is busy, stressful, and constantly demanding, they believe people still deserve small moments of comfort, joy, and connection. Sometimes happiness is not a grand celebration. Sometimes it is simply opening the fridge and finding something made with care.

Happiness, as Sugarshack defines it, is not sweetness alone. It is the feeling of food that reminds you of home. Food that gives comfort after a long day. Food that becomes part of a family's own story rather than simply being consumed and forgotten. That is a harder product to build than a good recipe, but it is also a more durable one.

The product line that emerged from that philosophy is both specific and intentional: Mango Kimchi, handcrafted puddings, artisanal ice cream, and other desserts made with carefully selected local ingredients. Each product was developed with the same question in mind: does this feel like something you would want to share with someone you care about?

Sourcing from Filipino farmers is part of that answer. When Sugarshack chooses local ingredients, Althea and Garryboy are not making a marketing decision. They are making a values decision that happens to have good marketing consequences. Every jar and every tub is connected to a specific farmer, a specific harvest, a specific community. That connection runs through the product in a way that imported ingredients never could. And consumers who understand that story become the kind of loyal customers that no advertising budget can manufacture.

The Mango Kimchi That Tells the Whole Story

Of all the products Sugarshack has developed, Mango Kimchi deserves special attention. Not just because it is the signature product, but because it explains what kind of food enterprise Althea and Garryboy are trying to build.

Mango Kimchi is a Filipino ingredient interpreted through a fermentation tradition that has become a global food language. It is creative without being gimmicky. It is rooted in local produce while speaking to a contemporary consumer who eats with curiosity and intention. It is the kind of product that a food brand in Northern Luzon can build, not because they copied anyone, but because they paid attention to what local ingredients are capable of when treated with craft and imagination.

That product did not come from a product development lab. It came from Althea and Garryboy's kitchen, where they asked themselves what Filipino flavor could become in different hands. That question, asked honestly and answered with skill, is the engine behind every strong regional food brand.

The Challenges They Do Not Hide

Althea and Garryboy are honest about what building Sugarshack has cost them.

Financial pressure. Shifting markets. The constant need to innovate, not because innovation is exciting, but because standing still in a competitive food market means losing ground. Every new product required testing and iteration. Every trade fair required preparation, capital, and energy that was not always easy to find. Every milestone arrived after late nights that most people outside the business never saw.

There were moments when the easier choice would have been to scale back, to accept a smaller version of the dream and protect what was already working. Althea and Garryboy did not take that choice. They continued moving forward, not because they had certainty, but because they had each other, a clear mission, and a faith that the next step was worth taking even when the destination was not fully visible.

One of the biggest lessons they carry from those years is also the simplest: entrepreneurship is not about having everything figured out. It is about continuing to move forward, learning from every setback, and trusting that every small step matters. That is not an inspirational poster. That is the operational reality of building a business in a region where resources are limited and the margin for error is narrow.

Their faith runs through all of it. Althea and Garryboy describe it directly: God planted this dream in their hearts and continues to guide them through the people placed in their path, family, mentors, customers, government partners, fellow entrepreneurs, and every person who has supported Sugarshack along the way. Any success they have experienced, they say, belongs first to Him.

That framing is not incidental to the business. It is the architecture of it. It explains the generosity behind the hiring vision, the care behind the sourcing decisions, and the resilience that kept Althea and Garryboy moving through every season of difficulty.

What They Are Building Toward

Sugarshack today has a physical home at Pansigshan Village and a presence at national trade fairs. The brand that Althea and Garryboy built from a home kitchen has reached customers beyond their home region. It is growing.

But they are building toward something that goes beyond revenue and distribution numbers.

They dream of building a business that creates real opportunities for people the formal economy tends to overlook. Stay-at-home mothers who want to earn an income while caring for their families. Senior citizens who still have talent, skill, and experience to offer. If Sugarshack grows, Althea and Garryboy want that growth to be felt not just in their own household but in the households of everyone connected to the business.

That vision is worth naming clearly because it is not common. Most small food businesses grow toward profit maximization. Althea and Garryboy are growing toward community impact, with the understanding that a business rooted in community creates a kind of loyalty and goodwill that purely profit-driven enterprises have to buy at great expense.

And there is something else worth noting. Althea and Garryboy are raising Mireya Esti, the daughter whose birth changed the direction of the business, inside an enterprise built on faith, hard work, and the belief that food can carry love across a table and into a life. Whatever Sugarshack becomes, it is already teaching that lesson to the next generation every single day.

What This Means for Northern Luzon

Every credible food brand that emerges from the region and reaches national distribution strengthens the case that Northern Luzon produces not just raw ingredients but finished, market-ready products that consumers choose over alternatives.

The path Althea and Garryboy took, starting from a side hustle, surviving a pandemic, grounding the business in faith and family, and building toward community employment, is a replicable model for food founders across Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, and the Cordillera. It does not require exceptional resources. It requires clarity of purpose, the willingness to pivot when the market demands it, and the discipline to keep moving when standing still would have been easier.

Althea and Garryboy are still figuring it out. They will tell you that themselves. But they are figuring it out in the right direction, toward community, toward quality, toward a business that means something beyond the jar.

Connect With Sugarshack

Sugarshack is, in Althea and Garryboy’s own words, still a small business with big dreams. The mission has not changed since 2016: to help people taste happiness, one handcrafted product at a time.

Whether you’re looking to try their signature Mango Kimchi, artisanal treats, or simply support a homegrown Northern Luzon brand, you can find Sugarshack through the following channels:

🛍️ TikTok Shop (Nationwide shipping)

🏡 Pansigshan Artisans Village (Back of Diplomat Hotel, Baguio City)

📍 C & Triple A

• Zandueta Branch

• Camp 7 Branch

📍 Modern Palengke

📍 Apple Tree

• La Trinidad, Benguet

📍 Tita Lea’s Food Specialties

• Available in all branches

📌 Facebook Page: facebook.com/TheSugarShack2016

Supporting Sugarshack is more than buying a jar of Mango Kimchi or a handcrafted dessert. It is supporting Filipino farmers, a family building together, and founders proving that businesses rooted in community, faith, and local ingredients can create something truly meaningful.

Supporting Sugarshack is not just buying a jar of Mango Kimchi or a tub of artisanal ice cream. It is supporting a farmer who grew the ingredients, a family that built the product together, and two founders who chose faith and community over the easier path.

What Sugarshack Teaches Every Founder

1. Launch before you are ready. Keep moving after you launch.
Althea and Garryboy started Sugarshack in 2016 with no external funding, no formal business training, and no guarantee it would become anything more than a side project. That was not a weakness. It was the only honest way to find out if the idea had legs. The businesses that survive are rarely the ones that launched perfectly. They are the ones that launched, learned, and kept adjusting. Start with what you have. The rest comes from doing.

2. Validation is often hiding in plain sight.
The pandemic became the moment Sugarshack realized they were no longer testing an idea. Customers were ordering almost every day, proving that the business had genuine demand. Many founders spend years looking for certainty before making a commitment. The reality is that certainty rarely arrives all at once. It arrives through repeated customer behavior. When people consistently choose your product, recommend it to others, and come back for more, the market is giving you an answer. Pay attention to it.

3. Your constraints are not separate from your strategy. They are the strategy.
The birth of Mireya Esti in 2023, after Althea's diagnosis of endometriosis, did not slow the business down. It clarified it. Becoming parents shifted how Althea and Garryboy thought about what they were building, who they were building it for, and what kind of lifestyle they wanted their business to support. The move away from customized cakes was not a response to declining demand. In many ways, the category had already proven itself. Instead, it was a deliberate decision to build products that could scale more sustainably while fitting the realities of family life. They focused on premium handcrafted snacks and specialty products that people could enjoy anytime, not just during celebrations.

4. Build something that cannot be copied by anyone who does not share your roots.
Sugarshack sources from Filipino farmers. Its signature product, Mango Kimchi, is rooted in local produce and made by hand. Its hiring vision is designed around the actual structure of the community it operates in. None of that is accidental, and none of it can be replicated by a competitor who does not share the same relationships, the same place, and the same values. The strongest moat a regional food brand can build is not a recipe. It is the trust of the community it comes from. Althea and Garryboy have been building that moat since 2016. That is what Sugarshack is, at its core: a business that could only have come from exactly where it came from.