Crunchy and delicious CROFFLES (Croissant and Waffle) coming your way!
You don’t need to fly to Malaysia and stand in line to get the trending croffles as CHUNK AND DUNK will have its first international branch in the Philippines at Eastwood City, opening on April 5!
What started as a moment of simple curiosity in a crowded Malaysian mall quickly turned into a mission for Lester Lim and his family; after one bite of a Chunk & Dunk croffle, they knew they had to bring that signature comfort back home to the Philippines.
What inspired Chunk and Dunk CEO Adam Shamil to start his own business? And why American food?
“For as long as I could remember, I tried so many desserts, you can name them, but one specific dessert I will never forget is the croffle that I had my first bite on, it was in the US. And that tasted not as good as the one we have now, and then I went to Korea, many many years ago, we also had croffles as well. And then we went to Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, and I think it was truly a calling. What started as like being a fan and having an obsession with croffle turned into a business opportunity. I told myself that, you know what, I don’t think I would be able to do content creation forever, so I really wanted to do something that would be able to live up to my passion as a croffle fan and also at the same time, being able to help my family, as I didn’t come from a silver spoon in my mouth. What better way to be able to realize that vision than to be able to combine my obsession of croffles. And when I decided to bring coffles to Malaysia and to Sabah specifically, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t start to make a business just for the sake of starting one, I want to be able to start something that I truly believed in. That is the reason why it took us a really, really long time to be able to get to the bottom of the recipe. It took sweat and a really, really long time to be able to achieve the level of cruchiness and flakeyness and butteryness, if there’s such a word. I’m really grateful to be able to start this journey 23 months ago.”
What was Adam’s reaction when he was offered to bring Chunk and Dunk to the Philippines?
“When we first launch the business 23 months ago, after 4 months we’ve received hundreds of candidates who wanted to bring Chunk and Dunk to their home state or to a different country. The difference with Lester (Edward Lim), he was very, very persistent, and he was very serious about it. He mentioned in his speech that we lost contact for a couple of months, and the reason for that is we didn’t have a proper set of kitchen to be able to scale our business internationally, because as I have mentioned, the idea was to expand and to first achieve stability in Sabah and then perhaps in Kuala Lumpur. So, when he approached me, I said, ‘yeah. It’s great. I would love to go to the Philippines,’ but in the back of my head, I know it was almost impossible at least at that point of time. This was last year, May 2025. So, what truly happened was a couple of months later, I posted a video and the video that I posted has nothing to do with the Philippines. It was just some typical, one of those trendy videos on TikTok. And it went viral in the Philippines coincidentally. 80% of the 2 million viewers were coming from the Philippines and then my colleague reached out to me and say, ‘do you remember that reached out to us last May? Why don’t you talk to them again?’ And I said, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s Lester and Hazel.’ I think I should probably take a step because a couple of months ago, when we have spoken, they were really, really interested. Many, many months down the road, I’m pretty sure their interest have probably faded. But we reached out to them anyways, I sent him a text at about 10PM and said, ‘hey, it’s me, Adam. I was wondering if you’re still interested. If you are then let’s jump into a phone call.’ And we were speaking for 30 minutes and I said if they’re really serious about bringing Chunk and Dunk to the Philippines, come down to KK (Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia). I literally put him to the test. I was also not very confident because we haven’t even dominated the whole Sabah and we’re already thinking about going international. I’m probably crazy, but at the back of my head, the opportunity has been presented to you right now, you must grab it. I want to make sure he understand truly the brand is, I don’t want anybody to just come in and say, ‘I have this much money and I like to bring Chunk and Dunk.’ It’s really not about that because if it really was about the money, we would have a lot of partners. But I’m very excited to announce that Lester is our very first international partner and I’m really excited to grow this brand with him and the rest of the team in the Philippines.”
For now, what are available in the Chunk and Dunk menu?
“For now, we’ll be working on producing croffles first. We’ll be introducing the croffles first, but then, the other products of Chunk and Dunk down the road. We just have to work out our supply lines and everything because we want to make sure that the quality is the same, or even better, may it be produced here or we source it from Malaysia. Those are the things that me and Adam are working on. We just want to bring the best here in the Philippines. We want the Filipino people to enjoy what we enjoyed. We want to bring that experience, not just the Kiosk but also the Diner. The Diner is really an experience. When me and my wife talked about it, she was like, ‘so, are you bringing Chunk and Dunk kiosk, what about the diner?’ And I was like, they have one burger, they have one fries, they have a spaghetti. But then, when I got there, the whole experience is like a 50s diner and when you try the food, when I tried the burger, I was like ‘pwede, pwede ‘to.’ Because even the chef that we brought tried the burger and said that it was a good burger. And now, the menu is expanding. From the burger, spaghetti and the fries, they have now developed their own chicken burger sandwich and they will be introducing buckets of chicken as well. I’ve seen how this guy works. We tried the chicken and it was good. He’s ruthless when it comes to R&D (research and development), he will not settle for just good enough. That’s why his tagline is “it’s never enough with Chunk and Dunk, because you can’t get enough of Chunk and Dunk and we will not stop in giving the best Chunk and Dunk to its loyal customers,” answers PH brand partner, Mr. Lester Edward Lim.
I have only tried two flavors, the Biscoff and Chicken Floss; they were really flavorful and the crunchiness of the waffle was divine. I can’t wait to try the other flavors.
Chunk and Dunk is officially opening in the Philippines on April 5 at Eastwood City.
Watch our coverage from the media launch below:
HYPE MANIA 