NCBA Fairview Gets Local Community on the Basics of Non-Bake Cookies
QUEZON CITY — National College of Business and Arts (NCBA) Fairview Campus and its Community Engagement and Sustainable Activities (CESA) program teaches its local community on the production, marketing, and selling of cookies without using an instrument that normally makes cookie baking improbable: an oven.
Continuing the training of its adopted families, NCBA and its CESA introduced a program last August 30, 2024, that guides its participants in the production of cookies without the need for baking them. A practical skill in daily life, enhancing their entrepreneurial skills with creative ideas, the program no doubt helped the attendees tremendously along with the newly introduced products and useful guidelines which will contribute to their economic conditions.
In a highly urbanized area such as Metro Manila, space can often be a luxury as much as it is a necessity for many of its inhabitants. As such, it is incredibly rare for most families, especially working-class families, to possess an oven, unless they run their own bakery or other business related to it. Therefore, many baked goods, such as cookies, often have no homemade equivalents in many Filipino households in Quezon City. Baked goods such as cookies are often only available at local store chains or bakeries, pre-packaged or freshly baked respectively.
Filipinos are well-known for their sweet tooth, having a fondness for all things sweet from chocolate fountains to ice cream, from savory frappés to the wide variety of local sodas. Cookies are no exception, and so it should be expected that there’s very high demand for it, especially among the youth. With limited sources, a gap in the market can be filled by entrepreneurs who are able to figure out a method to bring the sweetness of cookies closer to Filipino homes. This training program provides just what those entrepreneurs will need in order to fill that gap in the market.
Members attending, who mostly are housewives, regularly do household chores like cooking meals, washing clothes, sweeping floors, and doing dishes. Sometimes, they tend to buy ready-to-eat products for their families. So not only will they be able to provide their children with nutritious, yet affordable cookies, but the training has also provided them with innovative ideas on how to prepare cookies without expensive cooking equipment. This would help them in personal growth, well-being, and a sense of accomplishment.
A continuation of the livelihood program given to them like Chili Garlic Oil and Peanut Butter, Mr. Chester Mogol, head of Hospitality Management department once again leads the charge in showing these strong and hardy women the methods to entrepreneurship with the assistance of the 3rd year HM students who also took part in being calm, guiding hands to the participants.
Mr. Mogol and his student assistants first showed the difference of the baked and non-bake cookies, from which one participant of the adopted community was asked to follow what the model-student was doing from preparing down to cooking in a greasy pot. This way, they can see how cookies are cooked, providing a close look to the process to facilitate better understanding among the participants. These home-made products were in time for the Christmas season where the adopted community members can have potential buyers.
It capped the training by tasting the products prepared and even asked the NCBA employees for free tasting for the participants, allowing them to get immediate feedback for their products to further hone their craft in alleviating the powerful and ever-hungry Filipino sweet tooth.
