ERL FRANCISCO BAKERY of Poblacion Ferrol, Tablas Island, Philippines is operated by Edmira Francisco who is the daughter of Myrna, one of the workshop participants. Ms. Francisco is passionate about her business and appears to be doing her best to make it a success. The bakery is one of two in Poblacion and only has been operating since late last year (October 2012). From what she said, there is more than enough business for the two bakeries, though she was quick to point out that the real problem for marketing any product in Ferrol is the lack of jobs and incomes for families to make any but the most basic of food purchases. She too, in the same way as does Pinky, sells an array of baked pastry type products and prices these in 5 pp lots. This is price promotion based on necessity. It promotes the sale of product in the lowest priced lot possible (so as to meet the need of those many consumers locally with the lowest incomes).

The display case sells out each day.

 

There is an excellent glass faced display case and counter for the display of baked goods. Rolls and buns appear to dominate sales along with 5 pp plastic bag lots of small pastries.

The business signage here is especially good for Poblacion and in fact is a bit exceptional by its mere existence. So as well is the neat little brand/logo with the rolling pin sandwiched between two slices of bread (or two half buns). There is a problem however with the ink jet printed paper which appears to smudge on contact with other materials. However, it’s a small problem that can be easily corrected with a little effort.

Rolling Pin Sandwich Logo

 

Francisco has introduced a special paper bag into which is placed hot bread, thereby eliminating the condensation problems associated with the use of plastic bags for hot bread.

Making paper bags for hot bread.

 



Manual mixing trough and cutting table for dough.

Bamboo proofing racks.

The array of bakery equipment is quite good, at least for this area. This includes the wringer washer type of machine for kneading dough, a slicing machine (appears not to be functional yet and is the reason why full bread loaves have not yet been introduced to the product outlay), a wood/charcoal fired baking oven with propane option, a stainless tub for manual dough mixing and some upright basic shelving made out of small bamboo poles for cooling product taken from the oven. All in all, it’s quite a rudimentary facility, basic but functional and suitable for expansion if and when conditions warrant.

 

Oven uses propane or charcoal but charcoal is much cheaper.

 



Francisco family work together to operate the bakery.

Labor is not a problem. Apart from one of six or seven workers, all are immediate Francisco family members. But employment is employment and seven jobs all under one roof in this hard pressed community are significant.

Machine for kneading dough.
 

One major problem that I observed is in the area of occupational health and safety. This issue is one of worker safety in handling the preparation of dough by hand in the mixing/kneading machine. We observed the machine operating with the worker’s hands and fingers vulnerable at any moment to being drawn into the opposing (steel) rollers. There are no safety guards on the machine and if there was to be an accident, the operator or someone else would have to reach over to the lower part of the machine to shut it off. Not good! The problem needs to be addressed. A machinist specialist needs to be brought in and a way figured out to install a safety guard or mechanism to prevent an accident of this sort.

 

A big procurement problem for Ms. Francisco is the need to travel every day to Odiongan to source the ingredients she needs for that day’s production. This is due to her limited financial resources with which to finance the cost of larger volume lots of materials inputs. In other words she is unable to secure a line of credit from an appropriate financial institution.  This appears to be a pervasive problem throughout Tablas given that we heard last year about similar problems for small business people in San Andres.

Edmira worked for five years as a nanny in Singapore.  During this time she saved money to set up this bakery to employ her family.  Visit Edmira and her family live on utube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuSqgLe878c&list=UUKLdLUrOXVJPkIJuTTJxaAQ