Corporate Social Responsibility Therma South, Inc. Sustainability

Breaking the bread: TSI turns over bread slicer to local bakery

January 10, 2018

Things are looking even brighter for Sunshine Farmers and Community Multipurpose Cooperative (SUFAMCO), operator of Sunshine Bakery, as this community-based cooperative in Sirawan, Toril, Davao City continues to grow its businesses.

The cooperative, which earlier received baking equipment from TSI, Pilmico Foods and Aboitiz Foundation, Inc., has steadily been growing its customer base in the area for its bread and pastries. As their products increase in demand, AboitizPower subsidiary Therma South, Inc. donated a 15-blade bread slicer to SUFAMCO last 13 December 2017 to further support their operations.

“This bread slicer will really help with our production time. We can bake up to 12 loaves of bread in our oven at a time. The time it takes from making the dough to baking to cutting the loaves manually usually take up to 3 hours. We’ll surely be able to lessen the production time with this bread slicer,” said Solomon Gallardo, SUFAMCO member and baker, in the vernacular.

SUFAMCO is the partner cooperative of TSI and Aboitiz Foundation. The coop set up a local bakery after 5 of its members acquired a National Certificate (NC) II on Baking and Pastry last January 2017 through a training sponsored by Aboitiz Foundation.

“We never really expected to create a bakery. It wasn’t in our plans until Aboitiz provided us with training and capital. From there, we’re doing our best to grow our businesses. We can’t thank you enough for helping us,” said Menrado Intong, SUFAMCO Chairman.