When Matlhogonolo Ledwaba traded her corporate suit for the rigours of opening a small business four years ago, she was full of doubt, but she did it anyway and started The Bread Box Bakery in July 2017 from her home.
The Bread Box Bakery started with the intention of assisting unemployed women by giving them training, skills development and helping them earn a living wage.
On April 1, 2018, The Bread Box Bakery opened its first retail store to the public and employed five young women. The bakery would partner with culinary schools to provide work-based training and industry placement for upcoming young pastry chefs.
Fast forward to February 2020 and the bakery acquired a cooking studio – a logical extension to the culinary business. The cooking studio offers an interactive cooking and dining experience for both adults and children alike that is both wholesome and fun to take part in.
Ledwaba says one of the core aspects of the studio is the kids cooking club where children are given the opportunity to learn about the culinary world, find their way around a kitchen and create baked goods and cook food with the guidance of the chefs employed at the studio.
“This is where we mould the future generation into functional adults. Our kids cooking classes start from 5 to 13 years and teens from 14 to 19 years.”
Later in November 2020, the inaugural kids cooking championships were launched with various sponsors enlisted to worth together on the project. The idea is to host the competition on an annual basis and Ledwaba wants the next event to be even bigger and better than the first edition of the competition.
“The kids cooking club is the highlight of what we do in our studio, we have demonstrated that kids can cook from as young as five years old,” says Ledwaba.
The studio also offers team building activities, cooking classes, cooking experiences, brand activations, house keepers’ cooking classes, and couples cooking classes.
“This has been an awesomely painful journey, we created jobs, we assisted culinary students to get industry placement. The pandemic shook us and made us pivot our business model, and we continue to reinvent ourselves.”
The cooking studio was open for just a month when the country was put into a national lockdown last year due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the country.
Ledwaba says the business adapted to the new challenges that came with being in lockdown and launched an e-commerce platform and collaborated with drivers to offer deliveries in the Midrand and surrounding areas.
“We have recently joined the UberEATS platform. We also used our studio to collaborate with the Midrand community to provide bread and meals to the needy and vulnerable groups as well as orphanages and places of safety.”
Before the lockdown, the studio was used as a meeting place for entrepreneurs as a place to learn, collaborate and support one another on each person’s entrepreneurial journey.
“Conversations were held around the table under the #TuesdayPowerTalk banner. We have hosted influential and subject matter experts on the platform and shared knowledge with over 40 entrepreneurs on the platform. The talks are now held once a month on an online meeting platform,” says Ledwaba.
She adds that the cooking studio also created video content with some of the children to show what fun was had in the kitchen while also collaborating with other groups to share knowledge and increase knowledge.
“Our vision is to grow both our bakery and the cooking studio business by creating a model that will operate onsite, deliver and fulfil our e-commerce orders as well as offer virtual cooking events and functions online.”
