Gardenia's Operational Efficiency and Sustainability: A Case Study

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ASSESMENT TASK 1
GARDENIA

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Gardenia is a brand of the QAF group, which is engaged in the production and
distribution of the bakery products. The company focuses on achieving key qualities such as
freshness, good taste, trust and high nutritional value of the products. This has brought
many awards and recognition for the business and also increased customers. The company
has adopted a manufacturing process for ensuring efficiency in its day to day operations.
The company has also established a strong network for ensuring that the high-quality
products are provided to the customers on time, which would, in turn, ensure that the
nutritional values of the products are retained. The company has also adopted sustainability
measures for the betterment of the profits of the company, the people associated and the
environment in which the company operates. All this is contributing to the organizational
success and has made Gardenia the number one bakery products selling the brand.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................3
OVERVIEW OF GARDENIA.........................................................................................................3
DAY TO DAY OPERATIONS........................................................................................................4
GARDENIA’S OPERATIONS AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS AND PRACTICES....5
OPERATIONS SUSTAINABILITY..................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................. 9

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INTRODUCTION
This report has been made with the objective of analyzing the operations of
gardenia, which is a brand of QAF limited. This brand is engaged in the production and
distribution of the bakery products majorly in the regions of Singapore and Malaysia. The
report would analyze the operations of gardenia in all the locations namely the Singapore,
Malaysia, and the Philippines. The report would also be aimed at analyzing the sustainability
measures undertaken by the company by applying the triple bottom line method.
OVERVIEW OF GARDENIA
Gardenia operates as a bakery business of the QAF limited. Gardenia is considered as
the top-selling brands of packaged bread and related products in the regions of Malaysia,
Singapore, and the Philippines. The continuous success of the brand can be attributed to its
association with key qualities such as freshness, good taste, trust and high nutritional value
of the products (Kinetics, 2018).
Gardenia leads the bread industry in terms of both the volume and value within the
segments of wholemeal bread and total bread category. Owing to this increased demand
and production activities, the company has gained the status of “Singapore’s number 1
selling brand” is a survey conducted by the Nielsen Company (Subramaiam et al., 2017).

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DAY TO DAY OPERATIONS
The day to day operations of gardenia includes the bread processing and
manufacturing. The process of bread manufacturing can be understood as follows:
S.
No
Step Description
1 Input The just in time method is adopted for acquiring the raw
materials to ensure that they are fresh and fulfill the quality
requirements
2 Process Advanced equipment has been implemented by the company and
quality standards have been established.
3 Automatic
blending
The right amount of ingredients are being used and selected by
using a computerized system control, which helps in ensuring the
goodness of every loaf.
4 Production of
sponge mix
All the essential ingredients such as flour, water, yeast, minerals,
and vitamins are added together.
5 Fermentation
room
The sponge mix is allowed to ferment in a controlled temperature
to develop the taste, aroma, and texture of bread products.
6 Producing the
dough mix
The sponge is mixed with ingredients for forming the dough.
7 Divider The dough is divided into standard weights for the loaf.
8 Proofer At this stage, the dough is kept at the controlled temperature for
ensuring that yeast rises to the desired height before baking.
9 Tunnel Oven At this stage, the bread is being baked at the temperature of 200
degree Celsius.
10 Slicer and bagger The prepared break is kept in coolers before actually packaging
the same. The seal locked packaging is done for ensuring the
freshness of the products.
11 Output At this stage, the goods are ready to be sent to the intended
customers.
(Hasri and Sadali, 2017)

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24 HOURS OPERATIONAL CYCLE
The gardenia is engaged in bakery operations and requires the workers and the
production employees to work in shifts. The shifts are being designed for 24 hours per day.
The organization also employees the delivery and sales staff who is held responsible for
delivering the bakery products to the customers comprising of convenience stores,
supermarkets and other provisional stores (Our Business, 2018). The demand for bakery
products is increasing rapidly. With the objective of fulfilling this ever-increasing demand,
the company started the third shift in its production plants. With this, the production plants
have been operating for 24 hours per day over a duration of 5 days a week. The factories
produce approximately 1 billion loaves, snack cakes, and buns every year.
DISTRIBUTION OF PRODUCTS
The company has established a unique distribution system for ensuring that only the
fresh stock is being kept on the shelves of the stores. The company replaces the old and
unsold stock of the bread products on each day with the freshly baked bakery products. The
distribution system of the company makes use of the new fleet of the delivery vans and the
feeder trucks within the city limits for ensuring that the products are safely delivered within
the city limits (Growing our brand equity, 2017). The company has also adopted a unique G-
lock system, which acts as a quality control system for the organization. As per this system,
the resalable clips of the packaged goods are color coded for depicting the days on which it
is to be sold.
GARDENIA’S OPERATIONS AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
CONCEPTS AND PRACTICES
The operations of gardenia bread manufacturing are being undertaken in Malaysia,
Singapore, and the Philippines.
OPERATIONS AT SINGAPORE
Gardenia has established two fully developed and automated plants in Singapore,
which collectively produce over 200000 freshly baked buns and loaves daily. The product
range which is being manufactured at these plants majorly comprises of 55 different

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variants of the whole meal, white and specialty bread, wraps, and buns. Good qualities such
as freshness, good taste, reliability, and trust have been associated with gardenia by its
customers for the products supplied by the company (Abdul-Latif and Abdul-Talib, 2015).
The plants at Singapore have also achieved a ‘grade A’ certificate for the excellence of the
company in food processing and hygiene. The company was the first in Singapore which
introduced the loaf bread vending machinery. The vending machines have been established
in several locations such as schools, residential areas for serving its customers for 24 hours a
day.
OPERATIONS AT PHILIPPINES
Gardenia is the industry leader in the packaged bread market of the Philippines. The
bakery products which are being manufactured in the Philippines include health bread,
sandwich bread, buns, snack cakes, pocket sandwiches and others (Odchimar and Hanaoka,
2015). The company ensures that the products are being delivered daily with the objective
of ensuring that the freshly bakes products reach the customers daily.
OPERATIONS AT MALAYSIA
In Malaysia, the manufacturing plants of Gardenia are capable of providing 700
million buns, loaves, waffles, rolls and snack cakes per annum. Gardenia believed in
distributing its bread by itself and also providing the customers with essential and required
nutritional value about the food products. The customers were also provided with the expiry
date of the bread loaves. In Malaysia, the operations have obtained the HACCP certification
and ISI 2020 (Mukhtar et al., 2018). Gardenia has been considered as the most preferred
brand by the Malaysian consumers and has achieved gold awards at the Putra Brand
Awards. However, it is also evident that the company is making concentrated efforts for the
expansion of its production capabilities at Bukit Kemuning.

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OPERATIONS SUSTAINABILITY
The Gardenia is undertaking numerous measures for achieving progress in terms of
sustainability and is contributing significantly to the environment and community. The
company ensures ongoing initiatives for ensuring that it remains committed towards the
management and the improvement of the sustainability performance. The operations
sustainability of the Gardenia can be understood by applying the triple bottom line model.
 Profit
The economic performance and the profits for gardenia had declined in the previous
financial year due to the deconsolidation of financial results of gardenia. This was because
of the fact that 20% stake of Gardenia Bakeries Sdn Bhd was sold in April 2016
(Sustainability Report, 2018). This resulted in the reduction in the stake of the brand by 50%.
 People
The gardenia has actively participated in various activities related to school health outreach,
health promotion tools, and educational bread plant tours. With the sole objective of
promoting healthy eating and lifestyle habits among its customers, gardenia is conducting
health promotion initiatives by entering into partnerships with community and healthcare
organization in Philippines, Singapore and in Malaysia through joint ventures. The company
also implemented learning systems at the workplace in conjunction with the national center
of excellence for the workplace (Growing a Sustainable Future, 2013). This has ensured
training for the employees.
 Planet

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The organization has efficiently complied with the wastewater requirements and the other
applicable regulations with regards to the water quality discharge. During the natural
disaster in the Philippines, gardenia had distributed 16000 loaves of bread to the affected
families under the quick response disaster relief program.
CONCLUSION
After the report, it can be concluded that gardenia is already a market leader in the
baking industry in several countries such as Singapore, Philippines, and Malaysia. The
company is highly successful in ensuring a fair return on the investments made by the
shareholders. This is made possible by deploying the best technologies and supplying the
best quality products to its customers. It is also evident from the studies that gardenia has
undertaken the best sustainability measures which helps in enhancing the economic, social
and environmental performance of the organization.

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REFERENCES
Abdul-Latif, S. A., & Abdul-Talib, A. N. (2015). Boycott and racism: a loaf of bread is just a
loaf of bread. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 5(6), 1-13.
Growing a Sustainable Future. (2013). QAF limited. Annual Report. [Online] Available at:
http://www.qaf.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/a2013.pdf
Growing our brand equity. (2017). QAF limited. Annual Report. [Online] Available at:
http://www.qaf.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/SGXAnnualReport.pdf
Hasri. M. & Sadali. M. (2017). Global Production and Sourcing: - The Case Of Gardenia
Bakery In South East Asia. [Online] Available at:
https://www.ijbmi.org/papers/Vol(6)5/version-1/C0605011218.pdf
Kinetics. M. (2018). A deep dive into QAF limited – the Maker of Gardenia Bread. [Online]
Available at: https://www.moneykinetics.sg/investment-tips-qaf-limited-maker-of-
gardenia-bread/
Mukhtar, S., Zainol, Z. A., & Jusoh, S. (2018). Enforcement of Trademark Law in Malaysia.
Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 26(3).
Odchimar, A. I., & Hanaoka, S. (2015). Intermodal road-RoRo transport in the Philippines, its
Development and position in the domestic shipping. Journal of the Eastern Asia
Society for Transportation Studies, 11, 739-759.
Our Business. (2018). QAF limited. [Online] Available at: http://www.qaf.com.sg/business-
bakery/
Subramaiam, S., Quoquab, F., & Mohammad, J. (2017). The journey of Blitz: challenges lie in
running the family business. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 7(4), 1-18.
Sustainability Report (2018). QAF limited. [Online] Available at: http://www.qaf.com.sg/wp-
content/uploads/2019/03/QAF-Limited_2018-Sustainability-Report.pdf.