Billing for your bakery and sweet shop in Lakshadweep
Flour in bags, bread in loaves, jaggery by the gram: every sale counted before the next oven.
The bag of flour, the loaf and the spoon of jaggery
Mornings left in the flour room
Make flour an item priced and counted in kilos, and put each bag that the ship brings against it when it is carried in. Each batch you bake takes its flour off the stock. The number in the phone tells you how many mornings you can bake before the oven goes cold, and whether the next ship can wait.
The loaves counted into the boat's basket in the dark
Count the loaves into the boat's basket in the dark and write the number as the basket is lifted. An extra loaf for the boat is a second bill under the same name. When the owner comes to pay, you show him the count on the page, and not the empty trays.
Jaggery in the tea glass, on the bread and in the visitor's box
Make coconut jaggery an item priced by the kilo, and sell it by the gram on any bill. A hundred grams for the tea, a smear for the bread and a small box for a visitor each go on the bill with their weights. The tin in the cupboard has its own count in the phone, and when it is nearly bare you see it before the customer does, and the box for the visitor is never promised in vain.
Coconut on the bakery shelf
Coconut is on the Industries Department's list of key sectors, and the bakery shelf is one place its products reach.
- The Industries Department names coir production, coconut-based industries and handicrafts as the key sectors of Lakshadweep.
Before dawn, when the boats go out and the oven is still warm
The ship brings the flour, and the oven waits for it
The flour and sugar come in bags on the ship, and when the last bag is opened there is no bread until the next one lands. In the rough months that gap can be long. The count of bags lives in the baker's head, and he finds out it is wrong at four in the morning, with the oven already lit and the first customers on the way. The family of the baker is awake as early as the oven.
The dawn rush before the boats go out
Fishing crews want bread and buns before they go to sea. They come in the dark, in a group, all asking at once, and some take an extra loaf for the boat. By sunrise there is a pile of empty trays, the oven is cooling and nothing says who took what, so the day starts with a number you cannot trust.
A small tin of jaggery that is sold by the spoon
Coconut jaggery is dear, so nobody asks for a kilo. A customer wants a hundred grams for the tea or the bread, a child wants a small piece, and a visitor wants a box to carry home. Each small sale is a few grams off a tin, and at the end of the week the tin is lighter than the notebook says, and you have no way to find out why.
Tools for a bakery whose flour comes by ship
Bills on your phone
A bill with loaves by the piece, buns by the dozen and jaggery by the gram on separate lines, made in a few taps with the morning crowd at the door.
Daily reports
Each day's loaves and buns on their own lines, so a day when the boats went out can be read next to a day when the sea was too rough.
Online orders
A morning order for twenty buns, sent the evening before from your own online shop, so the first batch is baked for those who have asked.
Credit book (khata)
A page for an island wedding feast, with buns baked by the hundred, the half paid on booking on the first line and the rest settled after the feast.
What island bakers and sweet makers ask
Each woman makes coconut halwa at home and I sell all of it. How do I see whose batch sold first?
Name each woman's halwa for her, and the island's coconut halwa becomes several items on the shelf. The days' sales show whose batch went first, and that is the one you ask for more of when the next boat day comes.
A house orders buns for a feast. How much flour does the bake take off the flour item, and how do I know what is left?
Bake only the number of buns the order names. Take the flour for that bake off the flour item on the day you bake, so the count shows how much is left for the other mornings before the ship comes.
The ship is held back. Which loaf do I bake first?
Spend the flour you have on the loaves that sell first. Read the boat days in the daily report and see which loaf went most, bake that first, and let the buns for the feast wait for the ship.
Coconut jaggery, the island's costliest food
Deccan Herald (PTI, February 2024) calls coconut jaggery Lakshadweep's most expensive and exclusive food product, which islanders say goes into sweets, tea and as a spread on bread. A bakery that stocks it holds something a customer weighs out carefully, a few grams at a time.
Coconut halwa, Lakshadweep's traditional sweet, is one of the main sources of income for island women, and it is on its way to a Geographical Indication, Kerala Kaumudi reported in June 2024. A bakery that sells halwa made by women at home can keep each maker as a supplier and see whose batches sell first.