The Fair Trade Shop Cebu

ABSOLUTELY HOMEMADE

Baking has always been a passion for Grace Oyanguren – Gallarde, making a name for her even before she got married through her customized cakes for special occasions. She also kept receiving orders for her brand of ensaymada, and pork and chicken empanada.

This “sideline” business took a back seat when she got married and though she continued to bake, she only did for family and relatives. It was during this phase in her life that Grace became acutely aware of her parent’s poor health conditions that her siblings were already experiencing as they were approaching their middle age years. Her mother herself who is suffering from diabetes had ceased eating her cakes.

As her two children got older and more independent, Grace had more time in her hands to experiment with sugar free cakes. This need rekindled her passion and this time, the passion took on a sharper focus, that of producing nutritious breads and pastries.

Grace began to study nutrition on her own, applying immediately what she had learned to her baking and offering her “experiments” to priest and nun friends who were willing to become her “guinea pigs”. Along the way, she expanded her network to nutritionists with whom she has maintained close contact as theses nutritionists themselves would order her healthy bread based on specific formulations.

During this period, orders for her best selling ensaymada and empanadas kept coming in, allowing her to pursue her “experimentations.” Her ensaymada caught the attention of one of managers of the Robina Flour Mills.

In 2006, she received an invitation to join the Visayas wide baking contest launched by the Universal Robina Corporation, RFM’s sister company. Grace accepted, believing that the invitation was a form of recognition of her baking prowess. She, indeed, won the grand prize of both two categories – bread and bread artistry – of the contest and went on to the national grand finals, the prestigious “El Panadero de Oro” (Bread of Gold), to win the first prize. This success gained her an unprecedented media mileage, allowing her to promote her healthy pastries that are now focused on healthy bread.

Her participation in the contest forced her to come up with a name. Since she had been creating her pastries for her own aesthetic/ psychological needs and the nutritional needs of other people to create truly customized breads, she christened her hobby - passion turned business, Absolutely Homemade.

For indeed that is what her breads are. Even when orders are increasing, Grace is running her business from her home, right in her own kitchen. When Grace joined the contest, she only had one help whom she trained as her baker who was the son of one of the carpenters when her house was under construction. Noticing that Grace was getting busier with her baking, the carpenter offered to have his son work as her help, as he couldn’t afford to send him to school anymore. Grace who recognized both her own and the carpenter-father needs thought about it. She needed help yes, but she also did not want to compromise the child’s future by making him work full time, especially so that the son was especially bright. As working students are a common practice, Grace took on the boy as her help but sent him to school by night on the condition that he maintains good grades.

And good grades he did maintain as he graduated a dean’s lister with BS Math as his course, Grace is proud to announce.

As orders kept increasing, Grace took on the boy’s four cousins as well on the same condition that they finish school. All of them have since graduated. Grace smiles a mother’s smile as she accounts for each who graduated with marine, management, education and nursing courses, with two of them already working overseas, a dream most of the less privileged in this country consider a pinnacle in their working lives.

Grace is now working with a new batch of help who attends night school, except for her baker who is now in his early twenties but had stopped schooling at grade five. She is consulting with the Department of Education for ways to accelerate his education so he can proceed to a higher level closer to his age bracket.

Shortly before she joined the contest, Grace had begun innovating her bread, mixing them with vegetables. She pioneered in malunggay, camote, sayote, and carrot loaf breads. She has taken her bread to school fairs, as she is often being invited to different schools during the nationally declared Nutrition Month of July.

Grace has now expanded her product line to multi grain bread and omega 3 bread buns, both of which cater to the needs of people with debilitating health problems like cancer, heart problems, and diabetes. These breads are egg- and sugar- free.

People trying to lose weight will not have a difficulty controlling their intake with this bread, as each bun is formulated to contain the right amount of nutrients for one meal. Those who are not on diet can always take another bun should one bun be not enough as her breads are quiet appetizing (contrary to popular perception that healthy bread or healthy food for that matter are rather bland).

Through the years, Grace has discovered that Filipinos are not really bread eaters nor are they conscious of the nutritional value of the food they eat. But with the rush to modernization in the 21^st century with its increasing lifestyle health problems, Grace hopes to contribute her share of alleviating their ill effects through her Absolutely Homemade healthy breads.

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