Proton Bakers turns 60, still counting

it’s a milestone! 60 Years of Baking The Best Of The Best. The origins of the company the family-owned Proton Bakers was established in Marondera 60 years ago. the bakery was founded by Peter tselentis born on the Greek island of Kefalonia.

He left Greek at the age of 13 to find employment to assist his family who could not make ends meet. tselentis arrived in Zimbabwe in 1947 and worked for several bakeries in Harare where his entrepreneurial spirit was driving his passion for work.

ln 1947, he left Harare to settle in Marondera where he worked for the Model Bakery which was owned by the Vandoros brothers, Anthony and Gerasimos, who also owned a general dealing company.

After working at the Model Bakery for four years, tselentis was approached to run a new bakery, Mutare Bakery for the Zambelis family. While waiting for

Mutare Bakery to be completed in 1951, tselentis found employment at the original London Bakery in rezende street, where he worked as a baker and confectioner. in 1953, the Vandoros brothers recognised his entrepreneurial spirit and gave him the opportunity to rent Model Bakery from them. He left Mutare Bakery to settle in Marondera. tselentis ran the business successfully for a couple of years before he offered to buy out the Vandoros brothers and become the sole owner of Model Bakery. in time, tselentis would buy out standard Bakery situated in Marondera as well.

Although tselentis recognised there was great potential for expansion, the municipality’s governing laws meant he couldn’t expand the business in town and so purchased a piece of land in the Marondera industrial area. it was not long before his business was developing into a large company. the present bakery, Proton Bakers was built from scratch in 1959 driven by tselentis’ longterm plans for his bakery.

Bread soon became the core business at Proton, and with increased competition from Harare based bakeries, he decided to purchase a plant with a capacity of 900 loaves an hour. He installed a Baker Perkins plant with a single burner turbo radiant oven.

in those days such an extravagant purchase was complete madness!

However, tselentis was committed to the bakery’s success, so much that there were many nights when he slept in the bakery to monitor the bakery

operations.

running the bakery was hard during those difficult days — there were shortages of plant equipment and raw materials. suppliers such as rhodesian Milling (national Foods Limited) were supportive of his business, as were many other suppliers. strong relationships and loyalty were formed and are still in place to this day.

in the late 1970’s, spooner ovens were allowed to be manufactured under licence in Zimbabwe. tselentis purchased a B900 spooner oven capable of 900 loaves an hour to complement the existing Baker Perkins plant, which could not meet demand.

this spooner oven is still in operation and is currently used as a confectionery plant. in these times baking equipment — other than spooner ovens — was difficult to source in Zimbabwe. tselentis and Pat Cody an expert engineer, spent three months looking for old equipment in the United Kingdom.

they managed to source a plant with a loaf capacity of 1 600 per hour, from Cork and Jersey island. the plant was exported to Zimbabwe and fully reconditioned in Harare by Cody between 1979 and 1981.

this same entrepreneurial flair remains in the new generation of the tselentis family with Peter’s vast experience as a strong foundation cascaded to the new generation of management led by Gerry and spiros tselentis. the organisational structure has also revolved to adjust to the current business environment. this has resulted in enhanced competitiveness and following an ambitious business growth strategy.

A strong sense of pride and passion was instilled in the family business and this will continue to be cascaded to the new generation of leadership driven by high quality expectations across all aspects of product and service delivery excellence.

How company developed to become national force

Proton Bakers head office is in Marondera where all the manufacturing takes place and then distributes its products through the

Harare and Bulawayo depots. Proton Bakers now have representation nationally through the various retail and wholesale partners.

Proton Bakers is driven by innovative culture which has seen the introduction of the Proton caramel crunch cookies and the Proton chocolate select cookies to bring a smile to the consumers. Another highly-innovative product, the Proton sponge cake mix was introduced in december 2020 well in time for the Christmas baking period.

the consumers are highly-satisfied with this product and have brought a lot of relief to domestic and industrial bakers who used to rely on imports. Over the past 60 years, the company has been refreshing its brand to adjust and adapt to the ever-changing consumer needs. this has led to the company being recognised through various awards including top positions in the Marketers Association of Zimbabwe super brands, exceptional Marketers Awards, the Buy Zimbabwe campaign awards, the CeO Africa round table as well as Mega Fest Business awards.

the company product range has grown over the past 60 years to include a wide range of bread, confectionary, cookies and sponge cake mix.

These include:

• Proton superior white loaf

• Proton superior wholemeal loaf Proton superior seeded loaf

• Proton burger buns

• Proton twisted rolls

• Proton mini rolls,

• Proton sweet buns

• Proton hot cross buns

• Proton jumbo buns

• Proton candy cake

• Proton ramba waraira crunch cookies,

• Proton caramel select cookies,

• Proton chocolate select cookies and

• Proton sponge cake mix.

Proton Bakers would like to thank all the customers and key stakeholders who have made the 60-year journey possible.

their support is enough motivation to drive the Proton brand for another 60 years and beyond of providing the best of the best products.