Gardenia Bakeries to Invest Over USD19.5m for Mindanao Expansion

Leading bread manufacturer Gardenia Bakeries is investing nearly Php1bn (Philippine peso, meaning over USD19.5m) in a fully automated bread manufacturing plant in Mindanao, to serve the continuously growing bread demand in the south of Philippines.

Gardenia’s president, Jun Umali, said the company will soon be constructing a new bread manufacturing facility in a 2.5 hectare land in PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate in Misamis Oriental, adjacent to Cagayan de Oro (CDO).

“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.”

The ingredients used in baking are also sourced globally to ensure the quality. “We use flour made from US wheat, milled to Gardenia’s high-quality specifications, milk from Australia or USA, and other imported premium ingredients,” 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.

Umali said that the Mindanao expansion is in line with the company’s effort to bring fresh, quality products closer to consumers. “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 explained.

“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,” Umali added.

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’s bread demand, and second in Cebu for the Visayas market.