Daniela Pereira, 39 years old, abandoned her career in Social Services over a year ago to take over Padaria Regional in Arcozelo da Serra, with the aim of preventing her parents' business from disappearing. The decision came after her father's surgery, which exposed the business's vulnerability due to depending on few people. Daniela now assumes this new professional identity and states she identifies as a baker, declaring: "I was born into this."
The family's routine is intense with no fixed schedules. During the night and early morning, the family prepares products, including wood-fired oven bread, cakes, dry sweets and pastries. The mother remains in production, the father distributes in Nespereira, and Daniela heads to Gouveia from 9am, after also supplying a supermarket. "There are no dinner or lunch times," Daniela admits, and on busier days she may go directly from the night by the oven to the morning on the road.
Despite working in a bakery, Daniela is allergic to flour, which forces her to wear a mask and avoid tasks with greater exposure, such as part of the bread making. Thus, she mainly dedicates herself to pizzas, birthday cakes and dry sweets. Distribution is done in a van that goes through several neighborhoods, where Daniela knows each customer personally, their preferences and life situations.
Among the van's clients are elderly people like José Salvador, 92 years old, Augusta Carvalho, 82 years old, and Aurora Rodrigues, 80 years old, who depend on the service to avoid long trips. Daniela describes her role as also being companionship for isolated people, in a connection she considers a practical application of the skills acquired in Social Services. "This is a family," one of the clients summarized. The father has mixed feelings about the change, but Daniela states the decision was not motivated by financial reasons.
