32 years after he was born, Bamba's red-haired baby refuses to grow up, and models an Israeli peter-paniot from the heights of the high support bridge of the barn factory in Kiryat Gat. From afar, and from far below, it feels almost as if he is looking at you mockingly, but when you get to know the working souls you realize that there is no chance, and as you get closer you realize that the raised hand is actually waving for peace, and that the smiling face does not move, but certainly sends out a welcome.
And you can't blame him. In the barn, the new visitor center is treated as the absolute true Willy Wonka factory, and as such it is allowed to bend the rules a bit and allow babies - one specific baby, that is - to climb to heights and dangle their legs from there. You would also do the same in his situation, in his position. Before you even went in, and even more so on the way out.
Dream bath. From all the peanut butter at the Bamba factory
הצגת פוסט זה באינסטגרם
Osem doesn't need me to sell Bamba. This is a simple insight, simply, the most basic there is. This factory I enter puts out a million bags a day with me, and mostly without me. Let that figure sink in before I put an asterisk on it (*does not include all kinds of stuffed bamba editions, which are made elsewhere anyway). That way, it's much easier to visit. Obviously this is PR and obviously this is marketing and even if I'm not promoting sales I obviously have a role here, but given that this is one of the most perfect Israeli brands created on this earth, a real consensus in a country that no longer knows how to spell this word without fighting, it's fun to open doors and enter To the yellow-orange fantasyland.
The official reason for the tour is the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the birth of the brand, which entered our lives in 1964 (cheese-flavored at all, and with no trace of peanut butter) and has known very few upheavals and upheavals since then. Maybe that's part of the magic. And maybe magic is part of the secret. This birthday brought to the shelves a festive collectible case that gathers a vintage wink and places between two bags a large baby doll of course. As usual in our places, rumors about crazy demand and a black market rolled out almost automatically, and even though I saw with my own eyes shelves full of such things, I still had hard requests for the box on the phone.
At the same time, Asem launches a move whose lower threshold is charming, and whose peaks touch emotion like no company probably can, and every company would certainly want to. This is an online site through which you can order custom designed bamboo packaging.
The site, in the "Bamba Store" format of course, allows you to upload a photo and choose a caption, easily design, within the framework of the offered templates, the selection and receive the order delivered to your home (minimum 20 bags, weighing 50 grams and at a price of 120 shekels, and delivery for 28 shekels more). There is a nice play here between family events and happy dates, but also an option for bigger riots - from finishing courses in the army and youth movements, for example, to going on a trip after the same army, closing a smart circle given that the snack is a staple in suitcases and backpacks as well.
The move is complex (imagine 14 packaging machines, in a factory that supports 200 employees and operates 24 hours a day, all week except for Saturday, which now has to stop and put in a personal Bamba edition of twenty bags, and then come back, God forbid), and required effective cooperation with the printing factory "Digipak Ariza" Smart" in Sderot and with the advanced technology of HP Indigo. And Dim Moore, the factory manager, smiles and laughs when I ask him about the challenge, but answers at the end with "a happy response to the customers' demand" and surely hides the hard, impressive work of him and his people.
The result is great, melts in the heart, and mimics the dissolution of the bamba itself in the mouth. There is, naturally, a required censorship of the people of Asam - and what is more Israeli than a troll with inappropriate pictures and captions? - But the production lines at the factory are already rolling out the initial orders, with family photos and dedications to the soldiers, a tribute to the pet dog who doesn't know what to expect and an anchor of surprise bags for birthdays and bar mitzvahs. A celebration, and a blue-white celebration, just when one is needed.
We walk around the factory with Vadim and Nachum Zeiman, CEO of the snacks and pastries division at Asem, who has been with the company for a quarter of a decade, still with a big smile on his face. "The emotional connection Israelis have with Bamba is special, that's clear," he describes, "the brand is a part from the Israeli existence, and the project brings something that also happens in the field, and in life. After all, Israelis take bamba with them everywhere, from the first moments when they are allowed to eat solids and for years to come. We are only strengthening the possibility of connecting the Bamba to happy moments in their lives."
In between, the secrets are revealed (at least most of them, because they didn't let me see the absolutely secret room, the holy of holies where the snack is coated with peanut butter. I mean, they said they would give it, and they said they would have to kill me later, but they didn't say it with a smile on their face, so I gave up.) The technology works like this - a corn kernel goes into a pressure chamber and comes out swollen, when it is already a "bamboo" (yes, that's what the barn calls the bamba in the singular, closing a very stormy public debate (which hasn't received an official answer yet.) From there, it goes to a spin in the oven to get crispy, and the secret peanut butter coating - that's all it takes.
