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Loads of cash in customised baking

By Njoki Chege November 11th, 2013 2 min read

Gone are the days when we would eat square and round cakes baked from the jua kali jikos.

Today, you can have your cake customised according to your tastes, preferences and design of choice.

This is the era of Hannah Montana, Ben 10, Cinderella, Manchester United and Liverpool customised cakes, complete with the specific team colour, jersey number and message you want to put across.

But beyond the façade of the icing and superb, accurate decoration, lies an industry whose full potential is yet to be harnessed.

While it is an industry that could rake in millions, possibly billions of shillings, key players in the industry are crying foul over a few issues that need to be addressed, pronto.

New clients

It is an industry that is open to practically everyone, provided you know how to run your business and can whip up a cake.

There are new clients every single day; weddings, parents eager to please their children, friends who want to surprise their friends with birthday cakes, corporates celebrating big days…the list is endless.

This means that the industry is also open to quacks that deliver half-baked cakes, and many brides can attest to this. So what is really ailing this industry?

Irene Njoroge of Valentine Cake House on Kimathi Street says the fact that there is no regulatory body to standardise the baking industry and sieve the quacks from the professionals has terribly affected the industry.

“Our biggest challenge is that we do not have a regulatory body to set the standards for the baking industry. This has created a loophole of unprofessionalism in the industry as just any cake can be consumed,” she says.

Since there is no regulatory agency to register the companies that comply with their standards, many clients get poor service from bakers, yet they cannot recall the product and do not know whom to complain to.