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How To Set Up A Bakery in the Philippines

First of a series. 
Knowing how to bake.

I need more than a page to explain the nitty gritty on setting up your own bakery, in fact, in the next few months I will be re-opening mine.

So instead of lecturing you guys on what to do i will try my best to tell you my preparations for my bakery. Just to make it simple.

Siempre, dapat marunong kang mag bake. In all my years of teaching baking, I started 2001), every month I get students who own bakeries but never bothered to take up baking. Just like that, they would set up a bakery by hiring a baker.

Fine, as long as you can trust the baker right? Uh....wrong. That baker will not stay with you forever. Another downside is that 100% of the time, he owns the recipes your bakery is selling. You have no idea how much sugar the pandesal has, or how much egg yolks he uses in the Ensaimada so you can do proper inventory and food costing. Nada. 

If he tells you he has a headache and doesn't feel like coming to work today, he doesn't work today. That's it. No bread. You don't know how to bake, so the bakery is close for today.

If you know how to bake, then at least you can get a helper and train him or her, pay less than a master baker asks for and OWN YOUR BREAD. You decide how much sugar the pandesal has, how much egg yolks the Ensaimada has and best of all, you know how much each piece costs. 

Which is what I will do come March when my baking school/bakery re-opens. 

We live in a small subdivision so I don't expect a large volume of sales. My target is to offer it online, take orders and the display case is just that. If residents want to order, I will accept orders but won't be opening the bakery store like the rest of the bakeries which is usually from 4 am till 8 pm for safety reasons. Maybe when Covid disappears, I will but not yet as of now. I plan to open maybe at 5 am till about 5 pm or as long as supplies lasts.

So the bulk of my target client is online, I get to schedule the production as orders come in since there are not too many people around us anyway. This is also because i will do some online teaching as well, and open my hands on class to a limited number of students only. My class used to be for 5 to 6 people, but now it will be only good for 2 to 3 max per session.

I plan to hire a lady baker, someone who wants to learn and be a future Panadera. I will only hire an experienced baker if we can't handle the orders, but for a start, kami na lang muna. Hopefully, interested siya sa baking and willing matuto because if not, it will never work. Baking breads is something you cannot force on anyone. That someone has to love it, the mixing and the waiting. Not just the eating. Ang damiko ng  na meet na people who always say "ang hirap pala nito, bibili na lang ako". Patay!

If he or she has this same attitude, like we New Yorkers say it, forget about it. 

So that's at the top of my list and since I already know how to bake then that gets crossed out. Write it on your to do list. 

Till next....mahaba po ito so please keep me on your calendar. I am excited too.
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