If you are looking into starting a food business, your heart has to be in it.

Starting a bakery or catering company isn’t just about having a product that your friends and family love. It takes hard work and very specific expertise, and there are many factors that can keep your products off the shelves.

My love for the food and beverage industry exploded into undying passion about 23 years ago, when I did my industrial attachment at the Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos. Mentored and coached by Chef Pandurang P Naik, I was awakened to a world of culinary possibilities. 

Between that time and now, it hasn’t been an easy road. Without passion I would certainly have given up. 

Even if, in your case, you’re lucky enough to create a successful product, you will have so many long days, too little sleep, and one-too-many headaches to solve, that you’ll quickly burn out unless you really love it.

There are so many rules and regulations involved in the food industry that the average person isn’t aware of. You need to be aware of those that apply to your business. Before you take any major steps, make sure you have a fully baked business plan. A goal without a proper plan is just wishful thinking.

Always, I say it again, always remember who (the customer) you are baking or cooking for. Customer feedback is very important to your success.

Today so many food businesses seem to be springing up. While some seem to have found their niche, I still see many of them trying to do what every other business is doing. And most of them will probably burn out.

Copying others is never in your best interest. And while there’s plenty of room for error, there’s always room for innovation and creativity.

The key is to stay open-minded and never assume you’ve learned all there is to know because the industry is always changing.

When you start a food business, things will get hectic, often. There will be grease fires galore to put out (sometimes literally!). But if you stay true to your vision and learn all you can, you’ll have a guaranteed recipe for success.

Quality is the best business plan, period!




As a food business owner myself, this cannot be emphasized more. What we do always boils down to quality. 

Quality first!


This should be the litmus test for every decision you make regarding your business. All your decisions should be tested against it. 

• Will it lead to better quality? 
• Will it give your client value? 
• How will it affect the overall image of the company?

In my experience, I realize not all business plans are about putting quality first. Some plans are more focused on growing their market share, some on low pricing, while many just want to find a niche in the market place while just surviving.

HELP! I'm an addict!

Hi my name is Kela, and I’m an addict!

  I’m an addict and I need help. I’m an addict and I can’t even hide it.

''An addict is a person whose life is controlled by a particular thing or substance.''

Yes, you guessed it, my entire life is being controlled by CAKE!

Are you wondering how I got here…?

Well it’s like that silly game most of us play called ‘Candy Crush’ (yes I play it, don’t you?). You know when you keep getting those annoying invites asking you to play the game and each time you are successful in ignoring it. Then one day you make the mistake to ask someone ‘’what’s this candy crush thing about anyway?” and the response “oh it’s one stupid game that doesn’t make sense but is addictive. Please don’t even attempt it”. And as they say ‘Curiosity killed the cat’. Yes, you click and start playing… level 1, level 2 …level 10… level 100. Oh God, Noooo! You’re hooked.

Yep, kinda what happened to me with this cake decorating stuff. Honestly I never expected to be here at all. I mean, baking cakes, let alone decorating them, not exactly what I had in mind after getting my Higher diploma in Hotel Management. Naturally a lot of people expect that running a catering outfit means being in the cake business too, but for me that wasn’t the case. So after a few years of floundering in the food business, and missing out on some jobs all because I couldn’t do ‘just the cake’ or ‘handle desserts’, I decided to broaden my horizons and try something different.

Now here I am wondering what I’d do without the love of my life and singing

‘’… And I just de freeze, like say no be me.

My friends dey tell me say I don kolo, say the way I dey love say no be so

Say even when I kill myself, I no go know

Ah, wetin you do me? Wetin you give me? How you do am, and when you do am?

Because e strong well well, and I love you well well , you dey shak me well well.

I dey try to pretend, but boy you look so tender. Hmmm back to sender, whatever men, I don surrender. I no fit get you outta my head!”

You can’t still be wondering how I know I’m gone with the wind …..? Just in case, here are some of the signs:

First I’m here writing an article on my insane love of cake art. Also if you’ve ever had any kind of conversation with me, somehow it always comes back to a cake related topic. I talk cake, I think cake, and I swear even my dreams at night always feature cake activity. It’s like I’m always on about cakes, literally, everyday and everywhere.

Then there’s the screen wallpaper on my phone, ipad, and laptop; it’s all cakes. Every single one of them. Apart from a few pictures of family, my picture gallery is mainly cakes. It’s like I’m a cake picture collector. I even have them grouped into albums like you have on a cake decorator’s website; celebration cakes, wedding cakes, Christmas cakes, etc I even have an album for cake quotes *shrieeeek (Zoiks)*

Hmmm, speaking of decorators, it seems I follow every cake decorator alive on instagram, lol. I’m like the cake decorator stalker. Yels, that’s me. If you are a cake artist on planet earth, chances are I’ve been on your blog, facebook and intagram pages. I probably follow you on twitter, have subscribed to your website and you tube videos. If there’s something new you’re sharing I definitely don’t want to miss out.

Like most addicts, personal appearance takes backstage priority, my fashion sense seems to be almost non-existent. I say almost, I still try to add some face powder and lipstick on occasion, and I do dress up on Sundays for service. Hey don’t judge me, you can’t be all dressed up if you’re going to be all arms and elbows deep in flour and icing sugar. It’s no longer a big deal if I’m seen with a smudge of flour on my cheek or my palms are all red from mixing colour to make sugar flowers. Some days I think I generally smell like cake. On several occasions I’ve even been seen shopping with sweatpants, a smudge or two of icing sugar or flour on me, no makeup, no jewelry, all because in the middle of a job I discovered we’d run out of something I needed. One day I ran out to buy fuel and the fuel attendant actually told me he could smell cake. Haba! Hahahaha!

Unlike most of you, Monday is my favourite day of the week. Yes Monday, not Friday! Monday is my little piece of Heaven. Monday is my Saturday when I get to sleep in. It’s the day after the roller-coaster weekend. Thank God it’s Monday, Yay! TGIM! No cakes yet. It’s ‘Mon’ day (that’s French for ‘My’ day). I can spend my afternoon staring at cake pictures on instagram. I can indulge my other loves like writing, and write silly articles like this about, CAKE! I can stalk my favourite Caker (is that word even English). I love Monday and I love cakes!

Once again, my name is Kela and I’m an addict. I make no apologies!

What's your addiction? Be brave, own it...

Plantain palaver!!!

"The heart (of man) is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can understand it" Jeremiah 17:9. 

And so I found myself tossing the plate of dodo (fried plantain) into the trash can: angry at myself for not paying much attention when buying the stuff. But then who would blame me.

Earlier that day, I had just finished from a series of meetings, and was waiting beneath a very hot 

afternoon sun for my car to come back for me. Unfortunately, the usual Lagos traffic made what should have been a 5min wait stretch into a full hour.

While waiting, I started recalling the events of the previous day. Now as much as I love cooking (I think I actually cooK even in my sleep), there's just one area that has never held any appeal to me - frying plantains, arrgh!

Don't get me wrong, I eat the stuff but I'm not a fan (Infact I could go a full year without it, I couldn't be bothered).I can do anything you want happily with it. It's the frying process that just upsets me. Well you Know how some people hate doing laundry or ironing, for me it's frying plantains.

So after a long busy day cooking and making deliveries, I end up at 'Chez Bolo' to have some long overdue girlfriend time and rest before the drive home. Ofcourse, I'm tired and hungry, and as I enter the house I smell the aftermaths of, you guessed it, Dodo. Naturally my stomach growls, so you can imagine my delight when my dear 'bolo' offers to fry some for me. With eggs, yipee! Hmmm,it was delicioso amigas! Well I was supposed to leave with a nice bunch (her mum supplies the stuff) which sadly I forgot.

So standing under this hot afternoon sun, flustered and hungry, I spot a plantain hawker across the road. The next thing I know I'm over there purchasing a really small bunch in the hope that the experience of the day before would be re-lived. Surely I could put aside my dislike for the frying for one day.

Now try to imagine my disgust after going through that awful process, only to pop one into my mouth in anticipation only to taste nothing. Yes, I said nothing. The plantain was bland and tasteless.

At first I assumed it was me, so I asked my brother to taste it. Hmmm, he had this funny look on his face, asked to see the unpeeled remainder and promptly burst into laughter. His assessment: the stuff was 'force ripened', probably on a hot generator, as he put it.

Maybe if I was a connoiseur of the stuff, despite the hotness of the day and other disabling effects, I would have noticed the false ripeness?

Still, why are people so fraudulent?

Hmmm, Bolo darling, I de come back this weekend o, so arrange my plantain down ready for me. No excuses!

*Bolo is a term of endearment for a dear loved friend.

Xoxo!
Kelacious K.