Green banana flour innovator Made’s Banana Flour Bakery is taking its well-crafted and artisan pre-mix products to the world, marketed under their impactful Flour to the People brand. The business has been in full research and development mode for the past few years while supporting their smallholder micro-factory social impact with a fully-fledged B2B and B2C bakery offering that has developed the artform of baking with green banana flour – creating all manner of gluten free plant-based bakery goods from sour dough breads to pizza bases and pasta, sweets, pasties, pastries and spectacular birthday cakes… all under a halo of fair trade, gluten free, plant based and resistant starch attributes while shooting for sustainable income, a cleaner planet & wealth redistribution outcomes.
The company has a range of pre-mixes available and these products in overseas markets, and despite the extraordinary constraints imposed on global connectivity under the 2020 Pandemic.
For the Bali economy, decimated by the closure of tourism, the resilience of this innovative business has kept people in jobs throughout and has now set out on a robust 2021 banana plantation orientated development plan that is expected to bring significant economic benefits to the indigenous islanders of Bali and Sumba while laying down an agri-business foundation for scaling up green banana flour volumes to meet anticipated market potential.
The following content is provided by Made’s Banana Flour Bakery, Bali.
Madé’s (Mah-day’s) Banana Flour Co began as a friendship between two guys with a dream to do something meaningful with their lives and to make the world a better place. They walked the beach picking up shells for months talking about what to do. After chatting under a banana tree one day they decided to see if anyone was making banana flour. They experimented with drying and grinding green bananas in their back yard. Six months later they had perfected the banana flour.
They pitched the flour to businesses and chefs around the world. Word came back that people would love to use it IF they were given some recipes. So our banana heros opened the world’s first banana flour bakery, for R&D, in Canggu, Bali, in August of 2016, to learn to make all the things with banana flour: thick sourdough with big pockets to catch the spread of butter and marmalade, flakey croissants, rich but fluffy cakes, savory pizza dough with the perfect golden crust. EVERYTHING.
Madé’s Banana Flour Bakery has amassed an international fan base and won awards from Tripadvisor the last four years in a row, the last three being Travelers’ Choice Awards, putting Madé’s Banana Flour Bakery in the top 10% in the world, calculated based on the quality and quantity of the reviews, opinions and ratings.
But really, it’s not even about the food. In Bali, farmers’ rice paddies are drying up. The water sources and the climate are changing. So what was already a very low income crop is no longer an option for many. But lots of people have banana trees in their yards, and can grow them on that same land that once held rice. The few species of bananas grown for consumers to eat RIPE are famous for their struggle against diseases. But bananas grown for GREEN banana flour don’t face the same issues. So farmers have a more reliable, higher, and more sustainable income, without the risk and the chemicals. And when grown via the standards set by the Banana Flour Knowledge Center, these banana trees can also help remediate farmland.
With increased demand, our friends grew that backyard processing into an efficiently designed microfactory that doesn’t disrupt the community around it, that uses solar, composts all waste, and employs local people at a liveable wage.
The 2020 pandemic forced a scramble to produce mixes people could make at home, and subsequently a rapid expansion of flour production. Madé’s has scaled in the most sustainable way possible: with a small footprint, sourcing bananas from local growers, and employing local villagers in the bakery and microfactory, using solar and composting the waste to go back into the soil, ultimately bringing income back to the incredible people of Bali so they can weather this economic storm.
All of this puts power and wealth back in the hands of the people, funneling money back down the chain, while providing a nutritious food source without common allergens like gluten for a world in desperate need of healthier options.
Hopefully everyone around the world can visit Madé’s Banana Flour Bakery one day, and hug Madé, but in the meantime, the tried and true product premixes are shipping global, conveniently landing on your doorstep. First stop, the pancake (and waffle) mix in the UK!
Peel the positivity!
Ig – madesbananaflourco
Comments are closed.