CHINESE POPULAR BAKERY chain Baoshifu (鮑師傅), also known as Bao’s Pastry, has lured foodies into indulging themselves with palm-sized cakes and pastry delicacies.
Founded by pastry master Bao Caisheng (鮑才勝), Bao’s Pastry signature delicacies include pork meat floss cakes (肉鬆小貝) and fluffy cakes with milky cream. Fluffy cakes are wrapped with meat floss, plus rich mayonnaise (蛋黃醬).
Other tasty delicacies include coconut pastry (椰子酥), pineapple cakes, egg tarts, cheesecakes and croissants.
In some Bao Pastry’s stalls in big cities such as Shenzhen and Shanghai, queues can stretch for long distances. In peak times, customers wait for several hours to purchase the delicacies. More Hong Kong people now enjoy going north for shopping and dining, and love tasting Bao Pastry’s cakes and bringing back the scrumptious food to Hong Kong for beloved families and friends.
Tasting great while being affordable, the cakes and pastries have led many Chinese influencers to recommend the chain on social media. So far, Bao’s Pastry has established more than 100 outlets in China.
NEVER GIVING UP
Born in Zixi county (資溪縣) in Jiangxi’s Fuzhou city (撫州市) in 1970s, Bao founded the bakery chain more than two decades ago. Zixi county has long been renowned for its baking industry. Some residents from the county have opened bakeries in various cities in China as they have strived to enhance their standard of living.
In his early 50s, Bao told Chinese media that when he was a child, his parents operated a small bread stall to make ends meet. He learnt bread-making skills from his parents.
In 1995, Bao started his own bakery business in Zhengzhou city in Henan province. But Bao’s bakery stall business closed down, incurring a debt of over 1 million yuan. Bao then devoted himself to exploring versatile kinds of delicious cakes and pastries to tantalize foodies’ taste buds.
BRAND REPUTATION
In 2004, Bao started his second bakery business in Beijing’s Chaoyang district (朝陽區) in close proximity to the Communication University of China (中國傳媒大學).
Later many students from the university loved pork meat floss cakes. Students lined up for hours to buy the cakes and other pastries – which wooed Chinese media for widespread coverage.
Bao has also expanded its stalls in more than 40 cities including Tianjin and Nanjing. In 2017, Bao opened a bakery stall in the People’s Square (人民廣場) in Shanghai’s Huangpu District (黃浦區). Long queues have always been seen outside the Shanghai’s stall and many pastry foodies have praised the pork meat floss cakes and other delicacies for good taste and fluffy texture. Since then, Bao’s Pastry has successfully become a reputable brand in China.
STRINGENT QUALITY CONTROL
Nowadays, Bao Pastry’s chain has become a sought-after pastry brand as Bao has clinched success in his bakery business. He told Chinese media that his business success is attributed to stringent quality control, freshness of ingredients and customers’ trust. All the brand’s cakes are freshly made and baked inside the stalls.
To assure customers on cake and pastry quality, preparation processes can be viewed by customers through glass panels erected in stalls. Bao said that he wants customers to realize that the quality of products is superb.
Bao has strived to make his business brand long-lasting and revel more food lovers to have a taste of the delicious cakes and pastries – which are soft and spongy. He has vowed to continue to explore and offer the most satisfying pasteries for customers.
Image at the top by Wikimedia Commons.