Anita's secret

Mathematics and baking have done wonders for Anita Cabinian, the lady behind Anita’s Home Bakeshop.

Anita was a mathematics teacher at the University of San Jose-Recoletos when her husband Hermenegildo reminded her that she no longer had time for their five children. A good wife and a good mother, Anita obliged and gave up her full-time teaching job.

“I really loved teaching. My majors were Math, Physics and Chemistry. But I had to give up teaching full-time because my husband Hermie reminded me that I was not spending as much time with the children,” Anita recalled.

With lots of free time in her hands while the children were in school, Anita busied herself by learning to bake and cook by just following the recipes from cookbooks. She would bake goodies for her family and friends and cook lunches and dinners to while away her time. Soon she was selling her creations.

“It was just small time, really. Because they loved what I cooked in a gathering, some of my friends would ask me to cook for them. I really did not have any formal background in baking and cooking. I just followed the recipe. My being a math teacher made it easy for me. I was really precise when it came to following the recipe,” shared Anita.

Anita’s Home Bakeshop Inc. was officially born in 1970 and Anita and her family did not even have to think of a name for the company. “It just came to be known as Anita’s because of me,” she said.

The bakeshop was given its big break in the baking industry when it won a contract to supply 10,000 cookies a day to the country’s flag carrier, Philippine Airlines. Anita’s Home Bakeshop submitted samples to PAL and was chosen among many applicants to supply inflight snacks for the airline.

“I was so happy that people at PAL loved our cookies. Maybe it was the taste, I really do not know. But I really applied my knowledge in Math in making those cookies. Imagine 10,000 a day! I personally supervised the mixing and molding of the cookies but our oven at home could not accommodate all the baking requirements so I asked some of our neighbors if we could use their ovens for baking and then I paid them. I also hired people from the neighborhood to help out in the business and soon everyone was helping me,” Anita lovingly recalled and added that she felt a certain fulfillment in being able to operate a business and at the same time help other people.

After two years of supplying inflight snacks for PAL, Anita’s Home Bakeshop grew bigger as Anita used her earnings to purchase more baking equipment. For 18 years now, Anita’s Home Bakeshop, aside from opening 17 company-owned branches in Metro Cebu, also supplies the buns of McDonald’s outlets in the Visayas and Mindanao. The bakeshop also supplies the pastry requirements of a number of other fast food outlets. But despite the growth of the company, Anita’s has remained to be a home-based business, so much so because the bakeshop’s commissary and main bakery is just at the back of the Cabinian residence in barangay Apas.

“I am very proud that despite our smallness, our products are considered of highest quality. It was not easy to get that PAL contract and it is not easy to get a contract with McDonald’s,” Anita said with pride as she showed us around their commissary, which was very clean for a bakery. “I always remind our people that they must keep the place really clean because it is a reflection of the kind of work we do. When people think of a bakery, they think of sweaty people kneading bread. But as you can see, this is not the case when it comes to our bakery,” she added.

Now at 79 years old, Anita has since retired from her position at the company. Her son Benjamin is the one at the helm of the business. “I am now just an adviser. But my children did not like to be in the bakery business at first because they saw how I sacrificed so much for the business. Everything is different now because we already have people. When we started I was the baker, the tindera, the marketing officer, tanan ako,” said Anita, laughing. “But I still check once in a while. It’s different when you start from scratch, you will know all aspects of the operation and you will immediately notice when something is wrong.”

So what is Anita’s secret? “Hardwork, determination, and a little math. I never imagined I would be in the bakery business but here I am. Profit was never in my mind right from the start. I used my knowledge in Math to bake goodies. And importante satisfied akong customer. I really have a lot to thank for – my family for the support, the neighbors who helped, and the Lord for helping us survive the competition,” concluded Anita.