Fiji hot bread shops

spread like wildfire

A 100 per cent Fiji-owned company is changing the pat tern of Fiji’s diet. From one shop in Suva at the beginning of 1982, The Hot Bread Kit chen has swelled its numbers to nine, with the newest outlet opening in Lami in July, 1984.

Six are company sites and three are franchised. Applica tions for franchises are currently being considered from Western Samoa, American Samoa, Ton ga and the Solomons.

According to Tony Phillips, director, the most interesting application to date has come from a group of Fijian women in Lomaloma village, Vanuava lavu Island, in the Lau group.

The problems to be overcome include “lack of manpower” and “scarcity of resources.”

Assistance to solve the latter problem will certainly come from the recent establishment of a coconut oil mill in the area which has electricity. The com pany was organising a scaled

down version of kitchen com plete with “mini-equipment.”

The kitchens are open seven days a week and offer a list of 47 varieties and styles of breads and buns although not all simultaneously. Prakash Lai, manager of the Labasa kitchen which has been open for less than a year, said that wholemeal breads were by far the most popular including a very grainy loaf called Swiss Rye. The Suva shops con firmed this trend. Cream buns must come a close second judging by the number of small children seen about the streets with their noses buried in one.

The experimental kitchen in Lami has also come up with cassava bread and coconut bread, both light and delicious.

Mr Phillips said that the com pany intended to sell only breads and was resisting the temptation to stock pastries, etc.

Each shop employs about 16

people eight bakers and eight assistants, working on a morning or afternoon roster.

The sales figure for the first three quarters of 1984 was $2% million and that’s a lot of bread. 10 million items in fact. If the queues filing through each shop are another indica tion, this enterprise is certainly a success. Ngaire Douglas in Suva.