LOOK: Laguna café goes eco-friendly with reusable, handwoven pizza box

A newly opened café in Pila, Laguna, is promoting eco-friendly and sustainable practices by using reusable handwoven boxes for their pizza products.

The BrickOven Café located at Antigong Kahoy in Barangay Labuin, Pila, is owned by siblings architect Dennise Jocel Porca and chef Dhon Jhon Porca.

They have been using “tampipi” boxes made of sun-dried pandan leaves skillfully woven by craftspersons in Cavinti town in Laguna, known for its pandan-made products.

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In olden times, the tampipi boxes were used by Filipinos as native clothes chests when they traveled.

Café in the making

The Porca siblings were encouraged and inspired to build the cafe during the lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We were inspired by the realization that during these trying times, primitive and basic lifestyle are still important to overcome food needs and other necessities. And with that came our Brick Oven–very basic way of roasting, using old scrap woods as firewood just like what Filipinos are doing in the past,” Dennise Porca told INQUIRER.net in an interview.

“Also, our place here was built with a concept of using scrap and recycled materials as parts of the construction. That’s why we want them all to be connected from food to the place,” Porca added.

When ordering BrickOven Café pizza, customers may avail themselves of the “TampiPizza,” or pizza in tampipi box, whose jumbo size measures 30 inches by 30 inches for only P235. They will also receive a 5% discount on every pizza for their next purchase if they will be reusing the box. It has four flavors: Hawaiian, Pepperoni, House Special (meat and veggies),  Bacon & Mushroom, and Bacon & Fries.

Meanwhile, the production of smaller tampipi boxes is ongoing in Cavinti and they will soon be available in the cafe.

“We still have regular carton pizza boxes for our customers who opt for regular ones. Usually, those are the ones who are [from far areas] and cannot reuse their box for their next orders,” said Porca.

In a separate post on May 23, the cafe’s Facebook page shared photos that showed them using leaf fiber straws for the packaging of their carton pizza boxes.

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Aside from their pizza products, they are also offering Lechon de Pugon, with choices of head and belly, served on a bilao–a flat, round-shaped handwoven basket traditionally used in the Philippines for winnowing rice that is also frequently used for holding food and even for serving food.

The BrickOven Café’s Lechon de Pugon head and belly (Photo courtesy of The BrickOven Café’s Facebook page)

The BrickOven Café’s impressive environment-friendly initiative has also been praised by netizens on social media as their products’ photos were shared by Twitter user @peepaubau last July 9, which has gained over 36,100 likes, and 8,200 retweets and comments as of this writing.

https://twitter.com/peepaubau/status/1281185390351642624?s=20

The café opened only last May 20, which is why they only have few food choices on the start-up menu, but the Porca siblings said they are currently working on releasing other specialties while preparing also for the dine-in setup for their customers, which is coming up soon.

For now, their delivery service is limited within Bay town up to Pagsanjan in Laguna, Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  /ra

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