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THE GUARDIAN, Saturday, March 23, 2013
NEWSMAKER turn them to cakes. But looking at other person’s cakes inspires your normal cake decorators. To me, it is just like repeating the same style over and over again.” His love for fashion has faded away or better put, it is off the list for now. But he does bread, which is independent of the cake business. “I dropped fashion long ago but I am also into bread business, Topcrust Bakery Limited. The aim is to provide quality bread at affordable rates. The bakery currently produces about 16,000 loaves daily for consumers in Lagos State.” Jemade has also developed “sugar free” cake for diabetic patients. At present, Jemade is looking forward to spreading his frontiers. “We have a lot in the pipeline this year and forthcoming years,” he stresses. Jemade is not only after business; he is also concerned about the lots of the Nigerian child. Cakes by Tosan in partnership with LEAP Africa concluded a training session last month. The focus is secondary school students and children from non-privileged background. “We want to identify the talented ones in cake decoration. We are going to give them room for internship, train them, and allow them to start their own businesses. “We also partner with Lagos State Government in their skill acquisition center. They bring in trainees from their skill acquisition center and we pass some skills to them.” He is restless. At weekends, he works. When there is holiday, celebration often happens to be the next thing. And when they are celebrating, he says they demand for cakes, “which means that we cannot observe holidays.” But when he squeezes out time on weekends, he likes to spend it with his four kids and wife. He also unwinds on Mondays when everyone is at work. He cherishes marriage though tags himself an “old school.” He says “marriage is enjoyable but there must be a lot of sacrifices from both sides. But we can never have two captains on the ship. There is always chaos when there is a battle for control in a marriage. You have to be dynamic in marriage and the two parties must understand the reasons they came together.” The Delta State indigene advises younger ones to brace up because there is no easy way up. In attaining dreams, he says there are no shortcuts. “You must be prepared to work hard. In the past I had lost a lot of sleep but now I can delegate people to pick up jobs ...”
Sometime after the death of his mother, the task of baking his elder brother’s wedding cake fell on Tosan Jemide. His late mum, Rose, was a skilled baker and the young Jemide was always around her. He did not just successfully bake his brother’s cake but he has since grown to be one of the finest bakers in Africa. In a chat with The Guardian, he shares with VICTOR OLUSOLA how it all began. HO says handiwork cannot take you to the W zenith? Definitely, such a person needs to take a coaching class from Tosan Jemide alias “Cake Boss.” He has grown in leaps and bound, with his inventiveness in the bakery and sugar craft industry. In March 2011, he participated at the Squires Kitchen 25th Annual Exhibition in the United Kingdom where he created a life-size African woman cake, which highlighted the African Iteskiri culture to the international audience. Also, some weeks ago at the International cake event in Manchester, United Kingdom, Cakes by Tosan won the Gold medal for the category it competed for and the Overall winner for the year 2012. Last year, he won the award for the best cake design at the George Kerry Life Foundation Christmas charity and cake auction for cervical cancer. Though his passion for baking started quietly as a hobby, he says, it got more interesting along the way. Jemide recalls: “I was always helping my mother to do stuffs while baking, but it was never something I took serious till my elder brother was getting married years back in 1986. Before my mother died, she had done so many wedding cakes and my brother insisted we were not going to pay for any wedding cake,” Immediately, all fingers were pointed at Jemide since he had always worked with their mum in her days. Though he had never baked on his own, he took up the challenge. He says: “I got the flower, sugar and other ingredients, put them together and, to my surprise, it came out fine. That was in 1986.” From then, Friends and family would call on him to make cakes. Known today as the “Cake Boss,” all Tosan thinks about now is making cakes and coming out with the best. “I am passionate about it. When I wake up every morning, one thing or the other inspires me.” But as a kid, he was never sure of what he wanted to become. At some point, he wanted to become a pilot and at another, he sought to become a lawyer. However, Jemide’s power lies in his hands. While young, he was very creative, good with his hands and had an eye for beauty. After graduation from university with a degree in sociology, he had taken to fashion; but almost by chance he has found himself in the cake world. He is full of gratitude to his late mother whom he said brought up her children in such a way that they can do any domestic work. “I have three brothers and one sister. We had to learn to cook, wash dishes and clean the house. So, it was not new to me. If my mother was not around, it was easy for anybody to cook.” His dad, Isaac Jemide, on his part, was strict making sure that everybody at home abided by the rules. But when Jemide looks back he thanks God for having such a father. Though wealthy, his father did not believe in pampering his children. As a father, he provided the basic things and left all the nurturing to their mother. “We tagged him a wicked man ... But he taught us how to be contented, how to adapt to different situations and values. The luxury most rich parents gave their children we did not get,” Jemide explains. Jemide was born and raised in Warri, Delta State, but moved to Lagos during and after his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). He attended Federal Government College Warri before proceeding to University of Ibadan where he studied Sociology and graduated in 1990. According to him, he left Nigeria for the United Kingdom in 1996. At the UK, he trained at Squires Kitchen Farnham and worked with different bakeries. The last place he worked was Gloriette of Knightsbridge where he was part of a team that made cakes for high street stores in the UK such as Harrods, Selfridges, Harvey
Jemide...
The ‘Cake Boss’ Nichols and Waitrose. Cakes by Tosan stormed Nigeria in 2000 but it started roughly. When Jemide returned to Nigeria, he had less than $200,000 with him and he had no place of his own. He stayed with his sister at Ikeja in Lagos and started his bakery in one of her small rooms. Jemide recalls how hard it was then to deliver so many cakes within a short time with little or no hands. However, Jemade laments that Nigerians does not appreciate handiworks: “Though I do have a lot of high network clients, many people will still say ‘Is it not cake? Why are you charging so much?’ But someone abroad would see it from different perspective because a lot of manpower and hour goes into it. He urged bakers to be more professional in their delivery. “We have a thousand of people doing cakes but when you look closely at their works, they do not reflect professionalism.” Despite his experience and technical knowhow, he still faces difficulty. He finds it hard to get materials to work with. “When I have a cake order, I have to plan ahead to ease my delivery. If I am working abroad, I do not need to go through all that hustle.” Similarly, he says getting skilled manpower is a major challenge.
“If I was abroad and I wanted a skilled decorator with experience, I would get it easily. But here, the person might be running his or her own business. And if you are lucky to get someone, they will leave after learning the skills from you,” he bemoans Last year at the Civic Center, Lagos, Cakes by Tosan was rebranded. He says there is need to reinvent since the market is always moving. “We have a lot of new entrants into the industry and we are still in the industry too. But we want to essentially find a different way to say we are still here and we are different. “My selling point is my creativity. A lot of people aspire or tend to copy my work but it is difficult for me to copy others’ works. I look at things different from cakes and see how I can
Jemide