Healthier bread for the Filipino

Nov. 5, 2009 - PRLog -- The recent increase in flour prices have encouraged bakeshops to look for alternatives that result in the same quality that flour provides in bread baking.  Some bakeshops have adjusted the sizes of their products to make it still affordable to the Filipino consumer.  What you have as a result are either more expensive breads of the same size or the smaller breads at the same price.

Julie’s Bakeshops, a bakeshop chain from Cebu, with over 600 outlets nationwide took up the challenge of providing a higher quality bread and at the same time keeping it within the purchasing power of the average Filipino consumer.  “We wanted our consumers to have the same level of satisfaction with the products that we have been providing them.  We also wanted a healthier local alternative to the imported flour we are using for our bread products to keep the price low but retain and even increase the quality” – recounts George Abando, National Sales and Marketing Manager. So we entered into an agreement with the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) to come up with the healthy alternative – he added.

Acknowledging that the Philippines is one of the largest coconut producing countries in the world, Julie’s together with the PCA came up with a coco-based flour substitute which was tested for its nutritional value, and if this could be applied to bread baking which will replace the more expensive imported flour.  The initial batch of flour was tested by the PCA and also tested for several of the bread products in the Julie’s commissary. The result was more than what was expected – a bread that is fluffier, heavier and more nutritious.

Julie’s Bakeshop has already introduced the Coco-flour based bread products in select outlets nationwide.  It gained an instant following according to several of the Franchisees of the giant bakeshop chain as “pa baon” for kids school meriendas.  The pandesal type bread is available in singles for as low as P 2.00 or in packs of ten pieces.  

Following the widely popular reception to the coco bread product, it was offered to various Local Government Units as a healthy alternative for local feeding program initiatives for public schools.  This was first shown in the on going Strong and Bright feeding program in Quezon City where Julie’s provides the coco-based bread product to the Quezon City government at discounted rates.

Julie’s Bakeshops is now offering similar arrangements to other interested Local Government units as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility program of providing a healthier bread for the Filipino.

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