Ajoke Akeredolu is the Director of Jokades Cakes and Event. She is also the Head of Administration, Bakers and Confectionary Association, Lagos Chapter. In this interview with Haulat Afolabi, she says proliferation of quacks through YouTube is a major challenge in catering business. Excerpts.
How lucrative is catering business and how did you start?
I started almost from the cradle because I got the vision from my mother, who baked cakes, although not professionally, because she never went to any training school. I was always with her, and out of seven of us, I was the only one interested in making a profession out of it, since I had developed the interest, right from when I was very young. I watched her do all those things, imitated her, and so, along the line, I just unconsciously saw myself doing it on my own.
I went for more training, and registered my business. It’s been eight years now, professionally, even though I’ve been doing the job for a very long time.
How much was your initial capital and how did you raise it?
I didn’t really start with any capital, because I started from my mother’s kitchen. I started it with a stainless plate and I used my mum’s oven. Later, I started buying my tools from the profits I got from the cakes I baked then, because I already knew where I was going.
Also, during my National Youth Service programme, I kept all my allowance for the whole year and ploughed everything back into the business.
What are the major challenges you have faced?
There are lots of challenges, but the most stressful one is that a lot of quacks are now in the industry; a lot of ‘I can bake that’, when you just go through YouTube and you see some free recipes. So, it’s not really giving us that strong exposure that we need, but professionally, we know what we are doing.
We need a strong regulatory body that will curtail the excesses of these quacks. I think that is the major challenge we have now and that is what the Bakers and Confectionary Association of Nigeria is trying to address.
Being in catering business requires professionalism and excellent customer services. How do you manage your customers?
My customers are just like my immediate families because without them, I don’t think there will be Jokades Cakes and Event and I deal with them with so much trust. We’ve seen this confidence in them that whatever they place in our hands is definitely what they are going to get. We don’t cut corners. We create that trust in them that, in Jokades Cakes and Event, if you want a six-inches cake, that is what you will get; we don’t promise them what we cannot do.
What is the level of Hygiene put in place in terms of baking?
When we are talking about baking as a whole, it is about what you eat. So, hygiene is one thing that we don’t joke with as far as this industry is concerned because we have clients that respond differently to what they eat.
First, we don’t joke with covering our hair, which is important because, if you are not careful, the strand of your hair can easily get into the cake or other confectionaries. We don’t joke with oven clothes; we even put on our footwear (clogs) because, most times, our jobs can make us stand for a long time, especially when we are decorating a cake.
We can take up to three hours or more on a cake. So, by the time we are putting on the footwear, it takes in the pressure, we don’t feel it. We don’t also keep nails; we don’t put on jewelry. So, we are very conscious when it comes to sanitation and making sure that what we do is free from germs.
What is your advice to youngsters that wish to step into your shoes?
The truth is finding your passion because it’s not all the time that the money will come and that is when you really know if you have the passion for it or not. When things are down, when people are not patronising, when the jobs are not coming in, you won’t just pack your things and look for other things that are selling in the market to move into.
The baking industry is wide and not just about baking alone. There are other areas you can look at. If you are coming into the industry, you should first ask yourself if that is really what you want to do.
For me, I had the passion, right from when I was small. I never said I wanted to look for a job and I researched for knowledge every year. I went to nine different institutes in the area of baking and confectionary as a whole, because you need to keep up with the trend of things. So, you can’t rule out training when it comes to catering business so that you won’t become a quack. Perseverance is another key to success.
What are your plans in the next five years?
Whenever people ask me this question, I tell them that only God knows what will happen tomorrow. Every single day, I like to make a difference and I’m planning to open more branches by God’s grace.
