Bread manufacturer Gardenia Bakeries said it is investing P1 billion in a fully automated bread manufacturing plant in Mindanao to serve the growing demand in the south.
Gardenia president Jun Umali said the company would soon construct a new state-of-the-art bread manufacturing facility in a 2.5-hectare land in Phividec Industrial Estate in Misamis Oriental adjacent to Cagayan de Oro City.
“Gardenia’s Mindanao plant is a completely new breadline that will feature robotics and the latest available technologies in modern baking sourced from the best bakery equipment suppliers from all over the world like in Germany, the Netherlands, United States, United Kingdom, Malaysia and Japan,” Umali said.
The fusion of bakery equipment from the different parts of the world is one of Gardenia’s advantages according to Umali.
“Gardenia’s operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China and Indonesia helped it develop the expertise of combining the best baking equipment from different sources worldwide and make them work as one integrated unit which enable us to develop a proprietary manufacturing process unique to Gardenia,” he said.
Premium ingredients used in baking are also sourced globally to ensure the high quality and great taste of Gardenia products like flour from US wheat, milled to Gardenia’s high quality specifications, milk from Australia or US and other imported premium ingredients.
Gardenia will also take advantage of its location to ensure regular availability of ingredients supplies through the ports of CDO, Umali said.
The manufacturing facility will have a total capacity of 130,000 loaves and buns a day which will be distributed with an expanded fleet of trucks all over Mindanao. Othel V. Campos
Umali said the Mindanao expansion was in line with the company’s thrust to bring fresh, quality products closer to consumers.
“The new plant will cater to the increasing bread demand of Mindanao and will ensure greater availability of Gardenia loaves and buns across various distribution channels in the southern part of the country. Currently, Gardenia already distributes in Davao, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos, Surigao and Zamboanga del Norte coming from its plant in Cebu, but there is still a big potential for the market,” he said.
The Mindanao plant is Gardenia’s third large manufacturing plant in the country with the first and the biggest plants situated in Laguna for Luzon market and in Cebu for the Visayas market.
Aside from wider distribution of Gardenia products, the Mindanao plant is expected to employ hundreds of Mindanao residents.
Umali said the Mindanao investment was only one of a series of business expansions that the company planned for the next few months. Gardenia has more than 60-percent market share in the packaged bread industry in the Philippines.