Cake Festival 2018 By Edinah Bakora

Nairobi city in Kenya hosted this year’s cake festival at Kenya Wildlife Service Headquarters on Langata road, on the 16th June, from ten in the morning up to late in the evening. The event was sponsored mainly by Edumed Trust   and others: Unga Limited, Kenya Wildlife Service. Cake fest was packed with people from all areas of the city, students, band & mc entertainment, and full of fun activities for the kids. This event began in 2009 with only twenty professional bakers and this year it shows tremendous growth by having more than one hundred bakers from all over the country.

Cake Festival is an event held each year to offer unlimited opportunity for the cake industry experts, starter bakers, business bakers, as well as hobby bakers; to open up their services to the Kenyan market and to create links in the industry for the better growth of their skills and creativities. Also for the cake fans to attend and enjoy tasting different flavors of cake.

Many cake making businesses in the country were represented, from the famous cake houses for example: Valentines Cake house, Krumble, Cake City, My Cake Island, and XOXO Baked Indulgence. With exception of bakers, the event was also graced by other traders like: Bakers Heaven and Phimar Supplies, who contribute extensively to the cake industry by providing cake baking equipment and decorating accessories like baking tins, ingredients supplies (compound chocolates. raisins, cake mix, sultanas etc.).

Krumble cake tent, with entertainment on the side.

Cake industry has become a booming business in Kenya because most events today are always presented with a cake; from ceremonial opening of big corporate events for example: the launch of a new company or end of year parties, to small occasions like bridal showers, baby showers, church events and many others. In the past years, cakes were for weddings and birthday parties only and this made the cake industry limited to only a few companies like Paul’s Bakery, who are the legends of baked products in Kenya and are still present in the industry up to today.

There are so many types/flavors of cakes at the cake festival: orange, vanilla, marble, chocolate, lemon, banana, red velvet, white forest, black forest, blue berry, passion fruit, groundnuts, mocha, caramel, peanut butter and many others. The most common flavor in Kenya is the vanilla taste that did not miss in every cake tent and the top three flavors loved by most locals were passion fruit, blueberry and mocha.

Blueberry cake.

Other than cake shows at the cake festival there were also cake competitions which had different themes; from the wild to the infrastructures we use every day, which was creatively done by students from Loreto Convent Valley Road girl’s secondary school. They emerged the winners

against other schools and other creative bakers in the country. Below are some of the cakes that were displayed for creative competition. One was of a crocodile fighting with an eagle over the prey and the other was showing the growth of  infrastructures in Kenya.

Joy Bells cake center and Valentines Cake house were the only bakers with registered bakery schools whereby a full course lasts a month and for the juniors (5-12years of age) during the school holidays or weekends. Classes in a week are charged Kshs 12,000 for the first two weeks and Kshs 10,000 for the last remaining weeks, which is fair considering one will acquire a skill to begin their own business thus, creation of small medium entrepreneurs. There were some young students who were enrolled in the junior school of Valentines Cake house, making samples of cupcakes and ordinary home baked cakes. The new system of education that has been introduced in Kenya (2.6.6.3), encourages parents to enroll their children with co-curricular activities like these on weekends and during the holidays because it contributes to growth and development of the children's skills and talent. There were kids as young as five year old's who were very attentive and enjoying every bit of their class.

Some of the juniors are baking cakes.

Despite bakers having great sales they also face several challenges, the most mutual ones being customers, ingredients and pricing. Since every baker has their own price, customers tend to compare products which will never be the same nor will it taste the same. Also some customers want very good cakes at a very low cost not considering most of the high quality decorating ingredients used by local bakers are imported for example: fondant, color sprays to mention but a few. This makes most bakers advise their customers before they purchase what they want and also to tell them they will incur extra cost for an elegant decorated cake. It saves the bakers the hustle and bustle of having a discontented customer or a ruined reputation of the company. Another challenge bakers are facing is acquiring eggs which is one of the most important ingredients in cake making. Did you know that in Kenya we import eggs since the local production of eggs is not enough for consumption?

Elegant cake presented in a creative upside down design display.

Yes as peculiar as it may seem this affects most bakers in that they lack enough distributors which affects their production. Others have to travel to Thika and other outskirts towns from the city, to get the eggs directly from the farmers which is cost friendly but consumes a lot of time. This industry is emerging at a rapid pace since 2009 to this year, which shows that it is a large mass market that is not congested. There is a lot of job creation that is attributed to the cake industry and since baking is considered one of the healthiest options of making delicious foods compared to deep frying, we expect more of such festivals coming up in the country. Next year the cake festival will be even bigger with even newer flavors introduced by different bakers.