Love for baked bread fired up invention of bakery

By Pkemoi Ng’enoh.

Joseph Kipng’eno Sabulei has tried all kinds of manual work, including the charcoal business, to make ends meet and feed his family.

Growing up, his dream was to be employed in a bakery, start his own or get a job in a company where he would be in the kitchen baking mouth-watering bread.

Unfortunately, his educational background could not take him anywhere near his dream, having ended his studies at primary school level.

“I never went to secondary school or college. But I have had a passion for baking bread since I was a boy,” says Kipng’eno, 48. Without much education, he started a charcoal burning business but it was not lucrative and he abandoned it.

“When I quit charcoal burning, I opened an eatery where I learned how to bake bread but it wasn’t long before health officers cut short my booming business because I did not have the necessary permits to operate the hotel,’’ he says.

With the little he had managed to save by 2009, Kipng’eno was ready to venture into baking but he could not afford an electric oven, which locally costs up to Sh100,000. This forced him to improvise and he he used his jua kali oven to date. He moved from his  Bomet home to settle in Kedowa, Kericho County, where he bakes bread and cakes. He has a ready market around Kedowa.

The oven Kipng’eno made was modelled on the electric oven he was unable to buy.

He said, “It cost me only around Sh17,000 to build the bakery; I bought strong metals, which I used to make triangular shapes inside the structure, a chimney to direct smoke out and three rectangular metal plates to place dough for baking the cakes and breads.”

According to Kipng’eno, his oven is affordable because it uses firewood and the mud walls generate a lot of heat for baking; just like an electric oven.

“We use only about four pieces of firewood. The insulated walls do not allow heat to escape hence reducing wastage of firewood to two pieces per hour,” explains Kipng’eno.

Once the thick mixture of flour, water, salt, yeast, food colour, food preservatives and sugar is ready, small scones-shaped pieces are placed on the metal plates, which can carry 12 pieces each.

He says it takes only 13 minutes for 48 scones to be ready for the market, while full-size loaves take just 15 minutes when the oven has generated enough heat. The three plates produce eight full-size loaves of bread and six half-size ones each.

Unlike other types of bread available in the nearby shops, Kipng’eno’s brand, which is yet to get a name, sells for Sh40. Twelve scones cost Sh50.

Close to four years into the business, he says the profits from the bakery are as sweet as his bread. He makes about Sh20,000 in profits every month and is aiming higher as the market expands.