INTERVIEW | Geoffrey and Brian Friggieri: Busy Bee’s growth, its kannoli and ottijiet

Busy Bee has a long history, having been established in 1933 by Censu Friggieri, with your father Edwin taking over in 1974. Growing up, did you always want to continue in your father’s footsteps?

Geoffrey Friggieri (GF): We always helped in the business, since we were young. In a way, it was automatic for us to be involved, but we always liked the work. When we eventually took over from our dad, Edwin, our aim was to keep up the quality of our products and increase our sales. But I don’t think we were ever aggressive in our expansion strategy.

Brian Friggieri (BF): I don’t have memories of our grandfather Censu working in his small confectionary on the Msida seafront, but I know that his intention was to always offer the best product. When our dad started passing his business on to us, we decided to expand while maintaining the high quality of our products.

Late last year you opened a new factory in Mrieħel, including a coffee shop. What was behind this expansion?

GF: Our Msida premises started reaching its limits and we needed a bigger place.

BF: Our grandpa lived at his Msida café – it was his home. When the business was passed on to our dad, he kept buying property adjacent to the café, to make it larger. This had its limitations, however. We took a huge step in 1987 when our catering venue, Villa Mdina, started operating. Eventually, through this process of growth, we came to where we are now, at our new Mrieħel premises.

What are the challenging aspects of the business?

BF: Our biggest challenges are related to growth. When we were a smaller business, it’s like we had a car with a 1.6 litre engine going at top speed. Now we have a V8 engine but we have to ensure that we utilise all its potential. Things like our running expenses, such as the ventilation system and air-conditioning, have also increased.

GF: And we need to keep striving to offer the best product…

BF: People’s expectations are higher now than in the past. They have had more exposure to the kind of food available abroad and are more selective about which products they purchase.

What makes your food products stand out?

GF: All our products are made in-house and the seasonal ones are made following lengthy preparation periods. For instance, we had been preparing for Easter period production since January. Then, after that, we start preparing for the December festive period, and hold a Christmas fair in June. And we are very careful where we source the ingredients for our products from – for instance, we import specific types of nuts.

BF: Our focus is on traditional and artisan food, not mass production, which is why we haven’t delved into exporting. We are leaders in artisan food and consequently have some very loyal customers. However, I believe that in the sector as a whole there is harmony with our competitors – we don’t step on each other’s toes.

Which are the most popular products with consumers?

GF: Probably kannoli and ottijiet. Nut-containing products are also very popular, such as those with almonds and ricotta.

You’ve been open for almost 90 years. How have things changed and is there a secret behind staying in business for so long?

GF: Over the years many things changed, and we were sometimes ourselves the driving force behind some of the changes. For instance, we got some inspirational ideas for our products from abroad.

BF: Things have indeed changed a lot. Originally, our food used to be sold in wrapping, but eventually we started using boxes. These now include features that didn’t exist when our family business started all those years ago, such as best before dates, a list of all the ingredients.

We have a person working for us whose job it is to create ingredient labels, for example. We always make sure that we do things the right way.

GF: The secret to remaining in business, I would say is the fact that Brian and I always worked together as a team. We are brothers and friends. We got into this job wholeheartedly and are committed to it.

BF: And moreover, I think we also had the same idea of where we wanted to take the business.

GF: One of us is almost always at the premises, and if we are not, then our children are here. Our children have indicated that they want to continue in this business, which will make them the fourth generation of our family involved in Busy Bee.

How many people do you employ, and is it easy to find workers in this sector?

GF: We have 90 full-timers and several more part-timers working for us. And these are not just numbers to us. We know each one of them individually, and we ensure that they can fit in with the rest of the team.

BF: Finding waiters, however, is a big challenge nowadays. People working in the catering sector are not seeing it as a career. Even if they excel in a catering job, they still see it as a short-term thing. This mentality is not exclusive to today’s world, of course, but in the past, there were more people who saw it as a career.

GF: People used to see the role of a waiter in a more positive light. Now waiters in general in the industry might perhaps feel that they are not respected enough. If we didn’t have foreign workers to take up jobs around Malta’s catering establishments, I think half of the cafeterias and restaurants on the island wouldn’t exist. Foreigners are helping the Maltese turn the country’s economic wheel.

That said, we have several people – around 30% of all our workers – who have been employed at Busy Bee for over 25 years. One has worked for us for 50 years. Another reason behind our expansion to Mrieħel was to offer our workers a more comfortable environment, because we value them. We want our employees to see us as a family.

And we invest in them, too – we have a training room dedicated to giving training to our catering staff.

Looking forward, where do you see Busy Bee going?

GF: With our move to Mrieħel, we’ve just done a huge leap. Our main goal now is to consolidate this.

BF: But other projects are also in the pipeline, including the refurbishment of our Msida outlet.