When you already own 60 percent of the market, how can you increase it further by 50 percent? Gardenia Bakeries Philippines, Inc.’s President and General Manager Simplicio Umali, Jr. shares that it’s not just 60 + 50 = 110. That’s impossible. What you do is you increase the market for your product. That’s how you increase your sales to more than 100 percent.
Where did this come from? Gardenia, the biggest loaf bread maker in the country, just inaugurated its newest P1B-loaf plant, which increases the company’s daily production by 50 percent. Umali is confident that this new plant, which is capable of producing 150,000 loaves of bread per day, along with an aggressive marketing, will push Gardenia to even greater heights by the end of the fiscal year. With the greater supply of fresh bread and variety of choices, Umali believes that Gardenia will succeed in increasing bread demand and consumption. If Filipinos were eating bread for their merienda, they could be looking at Gardenia products for their breakfast, morning snack, and even midnight snack, too.
The new 6,000-loaves-per-hour plant is also located inside Gardenia’s massive Laguna plant and boasts of a fully-automated bread-making process. Umali assures that the technology of the new plant is par excellence, enabling Gardenia to produce even “more cottony” breads with finer grains.
Gardenia has over 40 different kinds of packaged bread available in the market as of date, from the classic white loaf to the more exciting cream-filled breads. This year, in addition to the opening of the new 6K plant, Gardenia also opened their first Bakers Maison at SM North Edsa, which is a high-end bakery bringing international flavors and breads to the consumers. Gardenia is also launching thousands of community bakeries this year under the banner Big Smile Bread Station, which caters to the mass market and offers more Filipino favorites like the pan de sal, pan de coco, kababayan, and more.
