30 Years of EdC

Running a pastry shop or a bakery is very hard work and requires a lot of energy and creativity. But freshly baked bread every day is one of the most beautiful and sacred things in the world.

gathered by Carolina Carbonell

We had a 'virtual coffee' with Joaquín Hauría (Joaco), a 24-year-old young man from the city of José C Paz, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Joaquín studies Business Administration and works at the UNPAZ National University, but he is also an entrepreneur, having set up a pastry shop with his mother: they bake and serve customers together, and supply products for cafés and hotels. "Pasté" is an EoC company. 

Our conversation, albeit 'virtual', gave us the impression of having entered Pasté's newly opened shop, smelling its aromas, tasting its flavours, listening to its music and discovering that there is a much, much bigger dream (and vocation) in there. The beginnings of new milestones are good news and bringers of hope.

Joaquín, can you tell us how Pasté was born?

The initial idea came from my mother about four years ago: she worked at the Centro Mariapoli of José C. Paz and she had been offered the job of making sweets for visitors' snacks, and that's how she started, with sponge cakes and puddings. She had always enjoyed making pastry and baking, so she gladly took up this opportunity. During the first year she worked on her own while I was on a training placement at Mariapoli Lia (O' Higgins), convinced that when I returned I would go on to study medicine. But while working there that year I fell in love with the corporate world. On my return, I was looking for a job and my mother suggested we work together, certain that as soon as I touched the flour I would "fall in love" with the art of pastry making. That's how it was; I started and I liked it, but later I liked the relationship with customers and sales even more. In the meantime, I was studying and looking for extra jobs to help Pasté grow.

And then came the pandemic....

The pandemic has been very hard, because the 4 bars that sustained our sales and the two hotels we were supplying closed down: we started selling through Instagram, through whatsapp groups and chains, delivering door to door. Since people couldn't come to the shop, we started working by delivery and adapted to all the protocols.

Tell us also about how the local Pasté came about....

During the pandemic, the Mariapolis Centre was closed and my mother was left without that income. It was then that, thinking about what to do, we decided to open our own shop with the savings my mother and I had. Although it was less than what we needed, we were confident that it would at least be enough to open. "Later we will improve and work out details, but we have to start," we said. And almost a year after the start of the pandemic we opened the premises, with no small amount of effort.

A house turned into a bakery?

That's exactly what happened... since we had no money to pay the rent, we decided to divide the house. We sacrificed half the house, the living room, the dining room and a bedroom, and for now we are keeping the kitchen, a gallery and the patio, and we don't know until when! We need more and more space.

What has been the customers’ reaction and feedback?

The relationship with the customers surprised us because we didn't expect it. The place is simple, but we are very keen that it should be clean, tidy, that it should serve people well, that there is soft music in the background, and that it should not be a place that makes people nervous, but rather one that lowers the ‘decibels of the day’. There have been many and very different experiences, we have the most diverse customers, from the one who comes to buy just a bit of bread because it's the only thing they can afford, to the one who comes to ask for one or two cakes and doesn't even ask about the price. We realise that our customers are of very different realities and possibilities and we always "slip" an extra brioche to those we know have less: we pay much attention, with our eyes and our heart.

What is Pasté's primary objective?

Without a doubt, it is to generate work, but to achieve this we need to make ourselves more and more known in the area as suppliers of pastries and bakery products. We want to be a transparent company, not losing the essence of what we do, never lying with our products, only selling fresh products, not having products in the catalogue that need to be fried, not losing out characteristic authenticity, ours as people and that of our products.

What have you learned in this adventure, Joaco?

What we are learning day by day is the strength and desire not to give up, to want to continue growing, and the best thing is to experience the support we receive from family, friends, the EoC, and also from the hand of God, because there are many things we could not have done on our own, and providence has surprised us many times when we were faced with the uncertainty of not knowing and risking to make a decision. We always dream a little more, but we also enjoy and appreciate the journey, the doing and the undoing.

How do you experience failure?

I experience failure every day, because every day you want to do a little better, but there are days when you succeed and days when you don't, so failure is constantly ‘around the corner’. But if I did badly today, I will try again to do better tomorrow. This is what Pasté grants us now as a team, as a family, as a dream: we are constantly learning, day by day, and the most important thing is that we are together.