Rejano Bakery: Where Cookies Are Transformed By Technology
Arrowroot flour is the main ingredient of cookies. What will one do when there is an insufficient supply of this in the cookie business?
This was the problem of the Rejano Bakery, an arrowroot cookie business in Marinduque that started in 1949.
Carmelita Rejano-Reyes, owner and manager of the bakery, asked helped from the Department of Science and Technology Region IV-B for the solution of this problem.
The department then gave her a grant enabling her to acquire a processing equipment that process arrowroot flour easier.
In 2006, Reyes asked help from the department again through the Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (SETUP).
“SETUP is DOST’s strategy to encourage and assist SMEs to adopt technological innovations to improve their operations and thus boost their productivity and competitiveness,” said the department in a statement on Monday.
The department said that the bakery went through the “Good Manufacturing Practice Training and Audit”.
After that the bakery adopted cleaner production technologies that resulted to reducing LPG consumption by 20 percent, improving their flour production by 200 percent at the least.
“In 2009, the business received another assistance from SETUP to improve packaging and extend product shelf life which increased the product’s marketability,” the department said.
“The improved packaging enabled Rejano’s arrowroot cookies to penetrate the Metro Manila market and boost its sales by 15 percent,” it added.
Rejano’s Bakery won the 2013 Best Technoprereneur of DOST held last August 27, 2013 at Traders Hotel.
“The award was conferred in recognition of technopreneurs who, through science and technology, improved their business productivity, profitability, employment and over all contribution to the regional economy,” the department stressed. –Paula Marie D. Navarra, Philippine News Agency
