Baking & Snack International - May 2008 - (Page 17)

18 Forever Gardenia Bakeries, the leading bread manufacturer in the Philippines, delivers freshness and flavor to its local consumers every day. FRESH BY KIMBERLIE CLYMA ustomers will not find days-old packages of Gardenia bread on the supermarket shelves in the Philippines. Unlike a number of its competitors who keep bread on the store shelves for 5 to 6 days, Gardenia Bakeries only stocks store shelves with same-day freshly baked bread. Since the company started 10 years ago, it has employed a distribution policy of delivering fresh bread daily to its customers including supermarkets, groceries, convenience stores and sari-sari stores (a special style of Filipino small-scale convenience store). Gardenia trucks leave the plant at 4:00 C every morning to deliver the fresh-baked product to customers. Unsold bread is replaced with new bread every day of delivery. Unsold returned bread is sold to commercial fishponds as fish food. This distribution system along with its varied product selection of bread, buns, snack foods and sweet goods has helped Gardenia Bakeries evolve into one of the top bakery companies in Asia. When the company started operations in 1998 annual sales were 175 million PHP (US$4.2 million, €2.7 million). Today, sales have reached 1.7 billion PHP (US$41 million, €26.1 million). A DECADE GONE BY. In early 1997, QAF Limited, through its subsidiary Gardenia International (Singapore) Pte Ltd, established Gardenia Bakeries (Philippines), Inc. Already the leading brand of packaged bread in Singapore and Malaysia, QAF introduced the Gardenia brand to the Philippines by opening Manila's first fully automated and computerized bread plant. Gardenia's manufacturing facility, located in the city of Biñan in the province of Laguna, ᮤ Classic white bread has been at the center of Gardenia' s product line since the company came to the Philippines 10 years ago. April May June 2008 Philippines, features five production lines and employs approximately 550 people in manufacturing and 320 people in sales and marketing. Two years after introducing the Gardenia brand to the Filipino market, it became the fastest-selling brand of sandwich bread with the largest market share in the Philippines. Gardenia controls more than 50% of the sandwich bread market segment in Metro Manila, and its next biggest competitor has a share of less than 10%. In supermarkets, the company's market share exceeds 70%. Gardenia's primary competitors are Creative Baker Co., Inc., Marby Food Ventures Corp., Bakerite, Inc., EFC Food Corp., Arlee's Bread House, Inc., Herran Bread and Food Mart, Inc., and Julson Foods Corp. From seven trucks 10 years ago to a distribution network of more than 160 delivery vans and trucks today, Gardenia is now one of the most widely distributed brands of packaged bread in the Philippines. The company's distribution network, which originally focused on areas close to the manufacturing facility in Manila, now covers 80% of the overall bread market in the major cities of Luzon Island (the main island of the Philippines where Manila is located). Distribution extends as far as Laoag City in the north, Cagayan Valley and Nueva Vizcaya in the northeast and the Luzon provinces of Albay and Sorsogon in the south. In the Visayas region, Gardenia's reach has extended to Baking & Snack International www.bsimagazine.com http://www.bsimagazine.com

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Baking & Snack International - May 2008