According to Ueng, at present there are two types of bread produced in Laos: industrially produced bread and home-made bread. Traditionally, the people of Laos do not like to buy bread or baguette at a bakery shop. Therefore, more than half of the baguette he produces is delivered to the main supermarket in the city or to the canteens and shops of vocational schools. He has noted that in all the food that people eat should be of really good quality and satisfactory to them.
Another interviewee is Mr. Somsai Soukthavong, 58, who was born in Thakhek, Khammouan Province, in 1950. Best known by a nick name “Ki”, he is a baker at Ban Khaoliao, and is one of the best bakers in Vientiane. His parents are Vietnamese who moved to live in Laos in 1945.He said, “I started learning to make bread from my elder brother in Vientiane, Mr. Doung. At that time I was around 20 years old, and making bread was an easier way to make money”. When he was about fourteen, he started working at the bread factory of his elder brother. After he had collected enough money, he bought his own bread factory in 1978 from Mr. Khai, an owner of a bread factory located in the Namphou area (Fountain circle). This was very famous area for business and merchandise and people could come here to buy what they wanted from this place at during the colonial time. In 1999 the government issued a regulation on pollution and the environment all over the country. All factories including the bread baking stoves in the city were asked to moved out; therefore, he pulled down his old bread stove and the second bread stove that he built by himself just five years previously. Then he found a new place out side the city at Ban Kaolio, where he constructed a new bread baking stove by his own hands in 2000. Picture : a bread factory house at Ban Sibounheug , Vientiane cityMr. Ki believes that the baking stove of MMF (Mission Militairse Française) at Ban Dongpasak might be the original baking stove made by the French soldier, because all materials were imported from France. For example, the metal covering the entrance of the stove was made with good strong material which could keep the heat inside constantly with a hydrolyte system; the hard thick large bricks were made of natural ingredients mixed with specific chemicals. Inside the stove they put a water pipe to spray out water around the stove. This was a specially made French stove and its cost was definitely so high that it would not be easy for the local people to construct. This original French stove was pulled down five years ago by government; all parts of the stove were destroyed and in its place a luxury government building was erected.