Delivering result-oriented support to organizations throughout the value stream is in our DNA at Pollen. As part of our social responsibility and 1% charity pledge, we endeavor to use our capabilities and services for a good cause wherever possible.
With this in mind, we reached out to The Bread & Butter Project – a non-profit organization as well as Sydney’s first artisan bakery run as a social enterprise! Breads and pastries are baked by refugees and asylum seekers from all over the world that the company employs as trainees alongside their qualified artisan bakers. Whilst learning the craft of artisan baking, trainees get to learn English and are coached to ensure they can kick-off a successful career after their traineeship.
We loved the mission behind the business and felt we had the perfect skillset and experience to make improvements to the business profitability – and in return we would get spoilt with delicious pastries and baked goods! So, the collaboration was launched…
“We care a lot about The Bread & Butter Project’s high quality products and especially their mission, which is extremely important. We love helping the people behind the company and appreciate the opportunity to really make a difference by sharing our industry experience.” Stephan Mang, Pollen Director
Using our expertise and industry knowledge, we provided solutions to some of the challenges The Bread & Butter Project were facing and delivered projects to optimize business operations:
- We put our STRATEGY in ACTION to work in two sales strategy workshops. In order to achieve the aspiration of becoming self-sustaining, The Bread & Butter Project revenues need to increase by 15% between August 2019 and September 2020. We facilitated the business in developing a 12-month growth plan and determining products and target customers to focus on. With our practical approach to strategy planning, we ensured the outcome was an implementation roadmap with clear actions for The Bread & Butter Project to make the roll out of the strategy a success.
- In a deep dive on The Bread & Butter Project production process, Pollen made recommendations on MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE for cost improvements. We performed a bottleneck study and investigated both equipment and people utilization. An opportunity to save $250k annually was identified by streamlining the workload by reallocating staff to identified bottlenecks and streamlining the utilization of the ovens throughout the day. Examples of tips for quick wins were the introduction of Gemba Walks and standardizing the cutting process to reduce waste.
- Another project investigated the distribution process using our SUPPLY CHAIN EFFICIENCY expertise. Daily, The Bread & Butter Project’s fresh baked goods are delivered by drivers in minivans. The optimal number of delivery vans, the most efficient delivery routes and maximum time spent per delivery have been determined to increase labour productivity.
- The Bread & Butter Project’s supervisor is one of the participants in the POLLEN ACADEMY Front-Line Leadership program. The Front-Line Leadership program is especially designed to help front-line leaders develop the right skill set to lead teams, coach individuals and get the best out of their teams so they’ll become tomorrow’s confident operations managers.
“It was a real pleasure to work with Pollen. With their hands-on approach, they were able to make recommendations for efficiency improvements in just a few sessions. The implementation has been very valuable for us and we learned to think with a continuous improvement mindset.” Philip Hoban, General Manager, The Bread & Butter Project
Going forward, we plan to continue supporting the team in the Sales Strategy deployment with frequent refresh and planning sessions. The team at The Bread & Butter Project is one of engaged and driven bakers and trainees. We are sure that with Pollen’s recommendations and tools for structure and efficiency improvements the business is set up for a successful journey of continuous improvement.
