JOF Laguna Plant Tour 2025

With the homeschooling year-end coming, our school, with the help of our Tribe Leaders, finalized the Laguna Plant Tour, which was held last March 25. Three plant tours were included in our itinerary: the Yakult Plant at Calamba, Lucky Me! Noodle Factory at Santa Rosa, Laguna, and Gardenia Bakeries at Mamplasan, Laguna.

It was a nostalgic feeling since I was unable to join any school field trips when I was still studying. The first stop was at the Yakult Plant since it was the nearest landmark from our base. The call time was set at 8:00 AM, which was not our usual morning routine. Nevertheless, we have to do this to experience this once-in-a-lifetime field trip together with other homeschooling families at Batangas along with others from Laguna. I don't have that many expectations with Yakult, as from what I see from others, it was just a presentation of Yakult history. They gave us a bottle of Yakult upon entry to the conference hall, wherein we all gathered to watch the video presentation and warm welcome from their representative. After that we headed to the plant tour, but no cameras are allowed to document it. It was just the machines either way, and they are explaining the process to us. Since it was the manufacturing plant, they don't have the physical store for the purchase of goods and keepsakes. But we have the option to buy 3 packs with a free keychain of Yakult.

Next up, we headed to our second destination, and we were given free time to have our lunch along the way. We opted for the drive-thru instead of dining in, afraid that we might encounter traffic going to Nissin Noodle Factory. We arrived too early with the said schedule, so we roamed inside the store to look for any keepsake we could buy while waiting for others. A few weeks before our field trip, I saw a vlog of Lucky Manzano, their endorser and TV host, touring the Lucky Me Noodle Factory. From that vlog, it was also a similar experience inside, but an activity like the video presentation and the dance activity was added to our itinerary. I suspected maybe because it wasn't allowed to be filmed; that is why Lucky didn't also include it in the plant tour. You will not see any people and only machines. According to them, there are only a limited number of employees inside the plant. We also had a chance to take a picture and interact with Lucky M mascot. We also received a pack of Lucky Me Original Pancit Canton.

The last stop was at Gardenia Bakeries. We were happy with this two-plant tour because we are fans of their products. If you watch our grocery vlogs, you may notice that most of our stock is their products. But touring inside Gardenia was by far the fastest among the tours. We just watched a video presentation (again, no camera allowed) and then proceeded to the view deck of the plant to see the process, which was also already included in the presentation. Then they gave us a pack of Ube Cheese Sandwich after the activity. We stop at the store to buy some products and keepsakes. 

Here are some of the items we got from our field trip. Some were not included because I gave it to my brother as his share. I asked him to accompany us and drive for us since I am not used to the SLEX yet.

It was a tiring whole-day activity, but we had fun. Definitely an experience added to my daughter's memory core as well as mine. Although she hasn't fully grasped the plant tour since it is not really kid-friendly information for now, I can see from her story before bedtime that she has her own share of fond memories from this field trip.