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Most people expected them to become vets like their father. But the Baker brothers had different ideas. They tell Liz Clarke their tale

BROTHERLY love is a nice idea, but too often rivalry and suspicion get in the way. That wasn’t the case with the Baker brothers, James, 52, David, 50 and Patrick, 44, who forged a career path from teenage years, each promising that whatever they did in the business world they would do it together.

A bright orange building in Umbilo Road with trucks sporting large oranges on the outside leaves you in little doubt as to the direction the Baker boys, together with their business partner, Vijay Loosen, have taken.

Inside, co-owner and director of Sir Fruit, Patrick Baker – affectionately known as Pukky – is waiting, eager to show off their new premises.

“It’s not new really,” says Patrick. “It used to be the Standard Bank. When we bought the building, we decided the first thing we would do would be to gut it and start again.”

Today this thoroughly unbanklike structure is a modern and airy production plant, complete with air monitors, cold storage and sophisticated machinery, and processes several hundred tons of fresh fruit a year.

The end-product is bottled and distributed to top restaurants, supermarkets, hotels and coffee shops throughout South Africa.

Don’t imagine for one moment, however, that it has been an easy ride.

“In the early days it was difficult to survive a day without worrying where the next bit of income would come from,” says Patrick, the youngest of the Baker brothers and a fluent Zulu speaker.

Their entrepreneurial exploits in KZN and beyond ranged from butcheries to southern-style chicken shops and gourmet food delivered to your home as well as several more “sure to do well” enterprises.

“We learnt the hard way about all the knocks and frustrations that come with starting your own business. But the one thing we agreed on was that, however tough the going was, we wouldn’t give up.”

They didn’t give up, despite “many setbacks”, believing that being honest about success or failure was a key part of their business journey.

“Our motto,” says Patrick, “is that if things don’t work out, try something else. We had agreed that none of the businesses we were involved in felt quite right and that somehow or other we had to look for greener pastures.”

The search took them to acquiring a small Durban-based fruit juice company called the House of Orange. The business sourced and used the abundance of locally grown fruit and supported local farmers – an ethic well grounded during their young years growing up in the horsey countryside of Summerveld, where their father, Brian Baker, founded and ran an equine veterinary clinic.

Says Patrick: “I had been lucky enough to learn the different blending techniques at the House of Orange, which had been blending delicious fruit juice under the watchful eye of chef Spiro Vlismas for about 10 years.”

“We stuck at it for about eight years in tiny premises, trying this