Mrs. Corazon Arce Granada decided to venture into the bakery business in her hometown in Tigbauan, Iloilo when she saw that bakeries seem to be making money. With just a bit of background in baking she proceeded to hire a baker who helped her set up the business. She decided on a gas oven that can accommodate 12 plates but after a few months of operation, she realized that she is not making money mainly due to the high cost of gas as a fuel.
With her gas oven, she was producing bread from three bags of flour but using about one (1) large tank of gas. She estimates her total cost of production, from flour to delivery costs at more than 90% thus giving her a slim margin. Since she was recording her operations quite diligently, she realized that she was not actually making money and instead, she was slowly getting into more debts. She computed that she would be spending almost one million pesos in one year just for gas alone and instead of making money, she would only sustain the business of the gas distributor.
She searched for alternatives and her baker suggested that she shift to a rice hull fired oven similar to that of a bakery next town. The baker also looked for the mason who built the bakery. Ands got the younger brother to build the oven for her. They made estimates and figured that they will be spending about P500,000.00 for an oven that can bake 32 plates or trays at the same time. Her baker said that that such an oven can use about 60 to 70 sacks of rice hulls weighing about 15 kilograms daily. With her delivery truck and her driver and helper gathering the rice hulls from a nearby rice mill, she estimates the cost of one sack of rice hull at about one peso so her daily fuel cost would be P70.00, processing 10 to 12 bags of flour!
She found a baker who also worked as a mason and has built a rice hull oven in the nearby town of Oton, Iloilo. Since a pure brick oven would cost her more than P1,000,000.00, she decided on a hybrid of bricks and concrete which would deteriorate faster than the pure brick model since concrete cannot withstand the continuous high heat generated by the furnace. Anyway she said that she can always make the repairs as soon as parts get deteriorated.
As soon as her oven was finished she commenced operations and was very happy that she made the right decision. The low cost of operations enabled her to compete with the other bakeries and even expanded deliveries to other towns in her area since she can now afford to spend on diesel for her delivery trucks. For the past 7 years, she had been profitably operating, thanks to her rice hull oven.
But the oven has another surplus- the carbonized rice hulls generated. With careful manipulation, the bakers can produce carbonized rice hulls instead of the white ash which can also be used as soil conditioner. Carbonized rice hull is highly absorbent so that when applied in the soil at the rate of 40 to 50 bags per hectare, it can vastly improve water absorption at the same time helping encourage the return of microorganisms because of the wet conditions.
“In fact, an integrated agri-venture here had been buying our carbonized rice hulls which they use as odor absorbent and later sold as soil conditioner to farmers in the area. I had also been offered by a researcher to venture on the soil conditioner industry so that I can add value to my carbonized rice hulls”, said Corazon.
Rice hulls are considered a waste by the rice mills and tons of this resource can be found all over the province of Iloilo which ranks fourth in the entire country in rice production. So far, there are fewer than 20 bakeries and business in Iloilo Province using rice hulls as fuel despite the fact that rice hull ovens would cost only about 20% of the fuel cost using conventional gas ovens. The main problem is the initial investment cost which would run to about One Million Pesos. “But the investment can be recovered in only a year or two if one ventures seriously into the bakery business”, again said Corazon.
“One main problem converting to rice hull ovens is the lack of masons or oven makers who can make perfect rice hull fed ovens. There are many who tried but their models do not generate the right heat and the bread baked are not of high quality that's why only a few bakeries would want to shift to rice ovens”, she added.
There is also the problem of storing the fuel which is bulky and takes much space. However, Corazon and her bakers solved the problem by putting the fuel in sacks and stocked neatly in the front store room. She also uses the excess carbonized rice hulls as land fill in her property nearby. Once the technology for an EM-fortified soil conditioner is perfected, she plans to commercialize immediately, thereby creating another income base for her and her family, at the same time solving waste disposal effectively.
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