Erica Neal: Fated to bake
When Erica Neal was still studying culinary back in 2007, she didn't like baking.
She loves cooking but she wasn't a fan of pastry. In fact she hated it back then, her colleagues even knew it. But things turned out differently for her. After her culinary studies, the 29-yearold chef ended up managing her own online pastry business now known as Zoet Cakes and Pastries.
She had studied crash courses at the International Culinary Arts Academy of Cebu (ICAAC).
Her being creative had significantly influenced her to eventually embrace baking and love it. And little did she know, she would be making cakes in her life.
"I’ve always been an artistic person, and it was much easier to play around with pastry and food," the lady chef entrepreneur shared to The FREEMAN. "The cake decorating side made me enjoy it."
Zoet means "sweet" in Dutch.
HOW SHE STARTED
"I started making Belgian chocolates when I first started. Then since Belgian chocolates were a bit pricey and there was not really a huge market for that at that time, a friend of mine asked me to make a customized cake for her daughter's birthday. So I did and made a couple little desserts too, at that time 'dessert tables' weren’t a thing yet.
And it grew from there, people liked what they saw and tasted and because of word of mouth I started getting messages from people asking me to make stuff," Erica recalled.
Her business started in 2009 but looking back she really didn't plan to go into business then.
"While in culinary school, no I didn’t think of opening a business. I wanted to go work outside the country that was the path in my head I created.
"But once I got to meet this one particular chef and he gave me a lot of advice and stories about how he became who he is now and how he grew, I was inspired by that," the Cebuana chef said.
Coming from a family who is business oriented, Erica knows running an enterprise isn't as easy as anyone would like to believe.
"It definitely not easy to run a business, there are its ups and downs. It’s an everyday challenge and obstacle you have to do. That’s why sometimes I laugh at people really young people who say I want to open a business. I would always try to encourage them, go and experience things first before jumping into that, because not everything you learn from business school or what not you apply in the real world. You have to experience it to know and understand how it works," she said.
Today, Erica offers different kinds of pastry and cake products for various events and celebrations to her customers who call her and inquire online.
Zoet also makes specialty pastries such as brownies, cookies and glass desserts.
She maintains a commissary in their residence in Capitol Site in Cebu City.
"I just want to continue catching the people’s sweet tooth. And if they continue to enjoy it we will continue to make it. And I think it’ll grow from there," she said when asked about her future plans.
"I’ve been blessed to collaborate with a couple of people and got to meet different people through this little thing that started in my mom's kitchen," she said.
Her mom is one of her entrepreneurial influences.
"My family is such a business oriented family and my mum is one amazing business women. Everything I know, tricks of the trade on being an entrepreneur I got and learned from her. I saw how she grew her own business to something big too," the entrepreneur shared.
Aside from online orders which are usually picked up in their commissary, she also ships products to her clients outside Cebu.
"People know us for our cheesecakes and mango butterscotch. The butterscotch is one product that’s actually flown out a lot. As much as the client wants the cheesecake, is not practically to hand carry one. We don’t actually deliver to everyone. They normally get picked up but in circumstances like if the orders are from Manila example, we drop them at the cargo in the airport and they get picked up by the clients," she said.
Erica has been asked to put her products in certain retail stores and even put up shops outside Cebu, however this isn't something in her immediate plans yet.
"I like the concept we have now, and it allows me to do collaborations with different people too. I get to learn and experience different things," she said.