Sweet & Coffee closes 2023 with seasonal products, new locations of which there are already 139 and plans to open fifteen more in 2024, reaching two new cities and an investment of 5 million dollars.

Two weeks ago he put chai pound cake. The trend and consumption of chai were part of the decisive elements for the company to offer this dessert to its customers. This product and tres leches chai join the brand’s offering this Christmas season. These desserts, along with other products in their portfolio, are made in a production facility in Guayaquil.

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Chai is a mixture of several spices, which gives it exactly that Christmas flavor, explains Kic-ling León, the company’s marketing manager, while one of the associates decorates this dessert, whose cake is particularly spongy. The decoration is cream cheese, powdered sugar, nuts and brown sugar.

They plan to prepare 3,000 units for the season chai pound cake, 2000 tres leches chai and 2500 Christmas apples. While traditional sweets change their decoration according to the season, such as coconut cheese, tres leches candies, tiramisu, among others.

The production facility in Guayaquil consists of a sweet, salty and transitional area. In the sweet part, an orange cake was created; Very close to that, the caramel used for the coconut cheese base was being prepared; On the other hand, the cooking process of lemon cake and corn cake was taking place in the oven area.

The daily life of the 115 factory workers also involves assembly croissants and cheese sticks, preparation crispy applepreparing the ingredients for the filling for chicken sandwiches and banana bread, and in the second place they are in charge of preparing the sauce.

Preparation of ingredients for a chicken sandwich. 90% of raw materials are domestic. Photo: Space

From the factory in Guayaquil, they are distributed to 93 stores in the city, as well as in Daule, Durán, Samborondón, Salinas and Cuenca; In this last city, on Tuesday, December 12, the third location was officially opened, and the 139th in the country. The company, which started in 1997, also has a factory in Quito, where about 38 people work. From there, almost 50 in total are distributed to institutions in the capital, Ambat and Ibarra.

The head of the factory in Guayaquil, Jefferson Zambrano, says that, for example, they make 2,000 croissants, 400 chocolate croissants and between 300 and 400 almond croissants. As for the sauce, they make about 2000 vats.

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In general, he comments that between 600 and 700 whole sweets are prepared per day, but during the Christmas season this increases, depending on the sweet, by more than 150%, mainly when it comes to wet chocolate cake, a small cookie from amarettoamong others.

The process of making cheese sticks. Photo: Space

In this plant, whose work began ten years ago with six people, they started with the preparation of 20 whole candies, and currently there are 28 to 30 whole candies. Before this factory and in the early years of Sweet & Coffee, there was no need for a plant, since each location had a mini kitchen; However, when they reached about 50 locations, they decided to standardize all processes through one point.

León comments that the company’s current portfolio has more than 70 products. The volume of production goes hand in hand with the taste and preferences of customers. So, it is led by the chocolate dip, the mini amaretto cake, cheesecake classic cake made of strawberries, coconut cheese and apples and walnuts.

Sweet & Coffee’s projections for 2024 are to open fifteen locations and reach two new cities. The planned investment is 5 million dollars, and they plan to generate 600 direct and indirect jobs. In addition, open a new warehouse space, expand the production facility and have larger administrative offices.