For 30-year-old James Anton Uy, owner of Cubcakes Bakery, winning the Bakery Fair competition in 2013 organized by the Filipino Chinese Bakery Association Inc. (FCBAI) was a realization that he could be a successful entrepreneur.
“As a novice [at] that time, I saw the opportunity to pursue the path toward entrepreneurship,” Uy said in a recent interview with the news media at the sidelines of an FCBAI event in Quezon City.
Uy, a respected baking and cake decorating instructor who bested even some of the more established names in the local baking industry during the competition, is a contributor for the internationally known Satin Ice (Satinice.com) for Cake Design Inspirations, as well as in various local magazines like Wedding Essentials, Wedding Digest and Real Brides Magazine.
The youthful Uy said his enterprise actually opened in 2012 with only four people helping him. Through the years, Cubcakes has developed a stellar record in making wedding cakes catering to the high-end marker.
Although he looks forward to bake cakes for celebrities, Uy has been asked by private companies to bake cakes on behalf of their celebrity clients.
“Cubcakes looks forward to work directly with celebrities in their activities that will need our services,” he said.
Uy said the Internet has played a major role in helping entrepreneurs like him to sell his products, particularly social media that allows clients to access Cubcakes’s products in a convenient and faster way as clients don’t need to go to personally visit a store to check on the products.
Based on his experience, Uy found social-media’s platform Instagram a useful tool to promote Cubcakes because his clientele use the platform to check the latest cake designs. “In Facebook, it is a mixed market,” he said.
Although it looks easy on the surface to use social media, Uy said, a user must study the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of social media. “You also have to spend money in promoting your products,” he explained.
“Opening a social-media [account] doesn’t necessarily mean people will instantly buy your product. You have to know the behavior of your target market first,” he added.
Since 2015, Cubcakes has been focused in making wedding cakes. Although it is a seasonal thing, Uy said a wedding cake maker must know the pricing mechanism to remain sustainable in the business.
With the proliferation of home-based cake bakers, Uy said many bakers don’t realize they are losing in the business until it is too late.
Uy said a basic knowledge in economics is important to make the business sustainable. Nevertheless, in the long run, the entrepreneur should learn the ropes of the business.
The food technology graduate said his educational background has helped him in “troubleshooting” the business. “If something goes wrong, you can easily spot it,” he said.
Peter Fung, the president of the FCBAI, said the bakery business is a regular fixture in a typical barangay in the country. “This shows that the baking industry is an entrepreneurial platform to lots of Filipinos,” said Fung.
According to its survey released in 2013, the Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry (ASPBI) noted that 3,000 or 20.3 percent, of the 16,000 of the manufacturing establishments are makers of breads, pastries, cakes, pies and other similar perishable bakery.
Moreover, the baking industry has attracted foreign players such as the Singapore-based Gardenia. Conglomerate San Miguel Corp., through its subsidiary San Miguel-Purefoods, also entered the bakery business by opening its Kambal Pandesal brand.
Fung said FCBAI also wants to attract the millennial and generation Z groups to try their hand in the baking industry. He added the industry needs young blood to grow and sustain the industry. “We need young people to carry on the tradition and innovate toward the new era for the next generation,” he pointed out.
Even without government subsidy, Fung said the industry has survived proving its resiliency during challenging times. “We at FCBAI hope the Bakery Fair can promote, strengthen and also elevate standards of the Philippine bakery industry not only as part of the country’s dietary, lifestyle and culinary culture, but also to help boost economic development through expansion of small and medium-scale enterprises or SMEs,” Fung said.
The three-day Bakery Fair will feature exhibitors, seminars and demonstrations by local and international experts. All kinds of modern baking supply and equipment will be showcased and the public is invited to participate from February 15 to 17 at the World Trade Center in Pasay City.