Shanaaz Essa, the owner and CEO of Exquisite Cakes, fell in love with baking when she was a young girl helping her mother decorate cakes for the family.

'I used to do the simple things like chopping up the cherries and that's how my passion for baking started,' says the entrepreneur, who's based in Elfindale, a suburb in Cape Town's so-called Deep South.

When she was a teenager, Shanaaz made Easter eggs that her father, a doctor, used to sell at his practice. 'I suppose you can say that the entrepreneur bug bit early because I've always wanted to own a business and make my own products,' she explains.

After spending a few years in the corporate world, Shanaaz decided to approach coffee shops in Cape Town with her cakes and after receiving positive feedback, she contacted individual Checkers stores in 2009. 'We were supplying to coffee shops at the V&A Waterfront and customers always had nice things to say so I knew our products were good enough for retail,' says Shanaaz.

She started supplying to a handful of Checkers stores in Cape Town and from 2015, her baked goods became available all over the Western Cape in Checkers, Shoprite and OK Food stores.

Shanaaz started ten years ago baking four cakes and employing six people. She now supplies 30 different types of cakes and biscuits, and employs 35 people.

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Shoprite Holdings Ltd. published this content on 21 November 2019 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 21 November 2019 09:05:07 UTC