The Bakers Fairy sprinkling tasty joy
ESTABLISHED at the start of the Covid-19 era, when the pandemic had just plunged the country, and indeed much of the world, into lockdown, one might have thought The Bakers Fairy would struggle to survive.
Time would wrong!
Three years later and the confectionary is still going strong, its tasty, sugary treats proving a real hit.
Owned by 33-year-old Polokano Tshegofatso Molebatsi and boasting over 7,000 followers on Facebook, The Bakers Fairy specialise in fresh cakes of various sizes, cupcakes, chocolates, marshmallows, and pastries.
“This business was formed in April 2020, roughly two days after a national lockdown was announced. That was when my husband had a conversation with me that we will have a lot of time stuck at home doing almost nothing. He challenged me to think about what I can do as a business and offered his support. I came up with a list, and baking was among the ideas, but I never thought I could sucprove them cessfully turn it into a business. Within no time, he had convinced me that it was the best from the list. He then registered the business with CIPA while I researched on how to make it a successful business,” Molebatsi tells Voice Money.
Indeed, research and trialand-error have played a big part in building up the business.
“I’m someone who likes doing research. I spend a lot of time finding information online and making recipes and taking them to my friends to taste and judge me.”
Based in Tlokweng, where the production magic takes place, the enterprise has a stall at Rail Park Mall, targeting both individual customers and corporate organisations.
Going forward, they are looking to penetrate the lucrative retail market.
“My biggest challenge has always been finding a bigger place to run this business; retail spaces are expensive and difficult to find. At times, we would think we have found a good space only to find that the electricity connection is single phase when the equipment we have purchased needs three phase. But we are closing on that,” declared the self-taught baker, who has a BSC in Computing from Teeside University in the northern English town of Middleborough.
Despite operating a single stall in Gaborone, Molebatsi prides herself on getting big business from major corporations.
Past clients include giants such as: Orange, Absa Bank, JCB, New Era College and Access Bank, who put in an order for 400 cakes on Valentine’s Day.
The Lentsweletau native believes the big companies keep calling as, once they’ve sampled