Do you want to do good and at the same time enjoy good food?
You should go to Overdoughs, which serves delicious chunky cookies, also known as Chonky Cookies, brownies, or brookies, as well as pizza and fries.
“I wanted to start a food business and I was looking at trends around and then I realized there were different kinds of donuts that were not being served here. So that is what I wanted to introduce to the market,” related Francis Carl Reyes, CEO and Founder of Caravan Food Group Inc., the company behind Overdoughs and Elait!
“However, there have been a lot of recreations of Overdoughs because we started with donuts, donut holes and then we transitioned to fried cookie dough and then we transitioned to baked cookies. That’s where we are now,” he added.
If you enjoy ice cream, Overdoughs also sells Elait ice cream, which allows consumers to see as their favorite flavors are rolled into the ice cream in front of them.
Deaf partners
That’s the good food part. The doing good part is that customers who buy Overdough’s many products are providing employment and opportunities for most of their employees who are deaf.
“I remember an experience before when I was a teenager visiting a clothing shop. The employees at the shop were all at the cashier talking to each other. And then there was a guy who approached me but he was not talking. He was trying his best to really assist me and it was then that I noticed that there was a name tag and the word deaf was placed there,” related Reyes.
That was Reyes’ first experience with a deaf person who he felt was the “epitome of good customer service. No matter who you are, he is going to assist you. No judgement.” That experience made him decide that he would employ deaf partners for his store.
He tried out the partner program initially with Elait. When he saw that it was doing well, he implemented it at Overdoughs. Initially, Reyes started with two able and two deaf partners and he would be observing how they were doing their jobs.
“I saw that the customers were interacting with them. And we made sure that we put a system in place where the customers and the deaf partners will have an easy time. Then we have LED writing board where people can communicate easily,” Reyes said.
Sign language
He also posted basic sign language in all the branches so that customers can learn how to communicate with them.
“Currently we have around 30 deaf partners. We had more pre-pandemic but we had to retrench because we had to close some of our branches. So far we have 12 branches,” Reyes said.
In the future, Reyes hopes to convert more of their Overdoughs outlets in to cafes so that customers get to savor their other products like pizzas, fried chicken, fries and empanadas.
Overdoughs currently has one such outlet in Greenhills where customers can not only enjoy good food but do good as well.
“We really want to offer the full experience and hopefully, we can also start providing sign language classes so that our customers can eat, can learn and can interact,” he said.
Visit www.overdoughs.ph and @overdoughsph on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for more details about Overdoughs.
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