The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
WHEN mourners gathered at Varaidzo Torto Murangandi’s home after her husband passed away, they pitied her as they believed that the death of her husband was going to plunge her into poverty. Few believed that she would use her baking talent to strike gold.
But that’s what she did thanks to her entrepreneur mother, who motivated her to wipe away her tears and stand up like an empowered woman. She has defied the odds and managed to live a successful life as a young widow and entrepreneur who is into bakery.
Born in Kwekwe 35 years ago, Murangandi, a mother of three boys, has defied the odds as she has established herself as one of the best cake bakers in Bulawayo.
In an interview, Murangandi said she has always had a passion for baking from the time she was in high school.
“From high school I loved baking as I was a food and nutrition student so after Ordinary Level I enrolled at the School of Hospitality and Tourism and studied bakery and I managed to get a diploma,” she said.
At the height of the economic meltdown, she left for South Africa, where she worked in the bakery section at a Spar outlet from 2008 to 2010. She also furthered her education and managed to get a Higher National Diploma in Bakery Studies while she was there.
Having left her husband and children in Zimbabwe she returned to be a full time housewife in 2010, then tragedy struck soon after, her husband Henry, who was aged 36, lost his life in a car accident along Khami Road in Bulawayo.
Instead of throwing in the towel after the death of the breadwinner, Murangandi took to baking in order to feed, educate and dress her children.
“My husband died when my youngest son Daniel was just six months old and I had to pull my socks up and concentrate on making cakes so that I raise my children,” she said.
Murangandi said she has made progress in her small business and has plans to grow bigger.
“I want to build a bakery in Gweru and that is my 2016 project. I will be supplying cakes for the Gweru and Kwekwe market where I have customers so I feel I should grow the business,” she said.
Currently she supplies cakes in Bulawayo, Gweru, Kwekwe, Plumtree and Beitbridge.
The cake guru is not only a cake maker as she is also a tutor to some of her customers drawn from the public and private sectors.
Murangandi said the cake making business was not for the weak as the industry has many bakers that make good cakes.
“Business is tough as the economy is strained already and people are after getting the best quality product so as to realise value for their money. You have to make quality products for people to buy from you,” she said.
She mentioned that she has challenges with customers who sometimes disappear after having paid deposits especially for wedding cakes that are expensive. She said people promise to pay in full after their weddings but at times they vanish with the money and even the cake stands that they would have hired from her.
Murangandi let slip that she also makes dummy wedding cakes for clients that have no money to invest in large cakes.
“Life is tough now, so people are trying to improvise by all means possible, so I make dummy cakes out of kaylite and decorate them with plastic icing to match a real cake. So we can make two real cakes and several dummy cakes.
“The bride will know which one to cut and which one to leave out because the other cakes will be fake,” she chuckled.
Besides dummy cake requests, Murangandi also gets clients that demand expensive cakes. Early this year she made a wedding cake worth quite a lot of money. She used the money to purchase a car.
“I did a 21-tier wedding cake and I used the proceeds to purchase a vehicle from outside the country after adding some more money. This has made life much easier for me as I can deliver cakes with ease,” she said.
It took her four months to bake the giant cake.
She also has another order for a giant cake for a wedding in April 2016. She will use the money to purchase another meaningful asset. Asked if she had any last words that she wanted to share with Sunday Leisure, Murangandi said:
“Cakes made me who I am today,” she said.
