BAKERY AND CONFECTIONERY CENTRE

The Bhumi Vardaan Foundation and Ritinjali have set up a Bakery and Confectionery Centre in Gurgaon to train boys from underprivileged backgrounds to learn the baker's trade. This project seeks to provide sets of finished food products to the consumers, while at the same time ensuring that the staple products provided by the farmers as well as the more exotic products grown especially on order are effectively utilized.

Through this Centre we aim to:

• Interact daily with home and institutional consumers.

• Supply other non-bakery items such as tea and coffee directly to the consumers.

• Build a relationship with the consumers by supplying them with a variety of commodities. This will also help sustain the small farmers.

Five boys from Ritinjali's Second Chance School , are currently being trained under the expert guidance of chefs from The Trident Hotel, Gurgaon and The Oberoi Hotel, New Delhi . At present, the Centre is producing Sandwich Bread, White Bread, Garlic Bread, Wheat Bread, Multi Grain Bread, Sweet Bread (with raisins and nuts), Muffins, Pao Buns, Burger Buns, Cookies and Cakes for the Trident.

The first phase of the Centre's operation has been successfully completed giving it a capacity of 1920 breads per shift or 500 kgs. of flour per shift. In the next 2-3 months, the Bakery is scheduled to expand to produce a comprehensive range of Indian and Western products such as, Croissants, Patties, Quiches, Kulchas, Footlongs, French bread, Pies, Tortillas, and Donuts, for which additional manpower and equipment is planned to be inducted sequentially.

We plan to duplicate this Bakery model in various other cities like Mumbai, Bangalore , Pune and Goa . The system will be such that we try and franchise out the Bakery to people who will follow the norms, philosophy and guidelines on the entire system from production, packaging and deliveries, including quality control, set jointly by The Bhumi Vardaan Foundation and Ritinjali.

We are also working on our certification system, and in the next few months we should be a fully certified Organic Bakery.