How a childhood memory made me want to invest in solar panels 🍰☀️

Impact investing is also about reconnecting the crowd with local businesses that are meaningful and relevant to their communities.

I can clearly see it with my mind’s eye: I am about 8 years old, and it is Easter in my great-grandfather’s hometown in the countryside of Portugal. On the table is this amazing, strange pastry, a local specialty, in the shape of a lizard, with colorful decoration and a cute red wool ribbon around its neck.

Manuel, meet the Sardão!

The famous and traditional “Sardão de Lousada” (The Sardan from Lousada).

I have since then learned that this festive pastry is traditional to several towns from Portugal, and it is probably some reminiscent of a pre-roman, pre-Christian pagan tradition. The roman Avienus wrote of the land of Ophiusa, and its serpent-worshiping people, referring to legends from the Bronze Age in what is now Portugal, so who knows if these people would have baked the Sardão!

Anyway, I digress, but this was my instant emotional connection to our new financing campaign: Solar Bakery, in Lousada. The story behind this 50-year-old family-owned company is embedded in the village’s history: in the 1960’s, new sanitary regulations pushed the three main baker families to unite and build a new modern facility. Together, they founded the Central Bakery, which opened its doors in 1968.

The bakery, in the 1960s and today, after the renovation

Since then, it has become one of the gathering places of the village, to grab a coffee, eat a pastry, and in festivities such as Christmas or Easter, taste the specialties, like the Sardão, Bolo Rei, and Pão de Ló.

The bakery is a pillar of the community, with 25 employees (13 men and 12 women). It supports local charities with bread and pastries, such as the Volunteer Firemen of Lousada. And they are also somewhat of a regional celebrity, as in Christmas 2017 they baked the largest Bolo Rei.

In 2021, 57 years after the three baker families decided to collaborate and build their new bakery, they wish to install solar PV panels for self-consumption. Another step towards innovation and keeping up with the bright new times that are now, bringing a bit of hope, resilience, and sustainability.

Maybe you will never get to go to Lousada to try their specialties but for me, this project is what impact investing through crowdlending is all about: reconnecting the crowd (people and companies who invest) with local businesses that are meaningful and relevant to their communities.

Author — Manuel Nery Nina - Co-Founder and CCO at GoParity