Exclusive: Marking a decade of development for South Africa’s Oh My Cake

Attending this year’s World Confectionery Conference offered some fresh inspiration for Naseeha Hassen, founder of Johannesburg’s Oh My Cake! Business in South Africa. Neill Barston quizzes her on a notable decade in the sector

Q: What inspired you to go into the bakery and sweet confections industry?
A: Some 13 years ago, I was finishing my masters degree in medical science in Cape Town, and I spending my days in labs working on human genetics. At the time, a friend bought me a voucher for a cake decorating class just for fun. I had never had an interest in cooking or baking before, but I absolutely fell
in love with working with my hands.
We were crafting sugar figurines, and I remember the cake I made was actually horrendous, and it was barely holding together, yet I was so proud of it. What
I loved the most was that it was a snow scene with penguins, and just loved making all the little details for it that gave them personality, and I just thought, I want to do more of this.

Q: How did you go about getting started?
A: I signed up to craft skills-share website, and I spent all my spare time learning from those classes, using different sculpting techniques, and mediums, including modelling chocolate. So, I would do lab work by day and
cake decorating by night! Eventually we reached a point where it was costing me quite a lot to buy all the tools and I was having to sell a few cakes to friends and family. By the time I finished my masters degree, I’d fallen so in love with the cake making that I decided to pause my academic career for six months and see if the business had legs. That was back in 2014, and it just felt like an instinctive thing to do, and my curiosity was so strong.

Q: What have been some of your biggest tests?
A: I would say one hurdle came in putting together a team. In the beginning it was just me, and I was selling at a food market, and also via Facebook. But I realised my own capacity was going to be my limiting factor, and I needed help. Putting together a team to work on a new brand was a challenge. I originally had a home kitchen along with my business partner at the time, but once we had hired a couple of people, working like that was no longer practical. We found our first space in 2016 in Johannesburg, which was part of a hair salon!

Q:How far do you feel the company has come in its first decade?
A: I feel flabbergasted at how far we have come in the past ten years. I would never have imagined it, when we started it was all about just focusing on the next cake. The business at our HQ has grown to a team of 25. We have a 300 square metre factory, where hundreds of cakes go out every day, and we now have two retail locations here in Johannesburg, as well as our online business.

Q: What have been the big trends this year?
A: This year Dubai chocolate is raging here in South Africa, so we put together our own version, and I enjoyed the taste testing for that. We’ve also seen trends around quirky cake designs as well, where people can choose their designs and it’s piped in a very playful, cartoonish way. We’ve also enjoyed
the ‘burnaway cake trend’ of top layers that are lit to burn away and reveal a special message – people enjoy those interactive elements.

Q: You attended this year’s World Confectionery Conference in Brussels, how did you find it?
A: It was fascinating. I really enjoyed the themes of sustainability, and how it also looked at how the shift towards wellness has influenced the industry. I found it so inspiring how some of the speakers explained how they had become more sustainable, and others how they had stayed true to their traditional confectionery, regardless of changing tides in confectionery, which really inspired me.

Q: You have continued to grow the business over the past decade, do you consider yourself to still be hands on with designs, or do you take more of a management role?

A: I am still very much hands on with designing the cakes, which has been my first love and always will be, and I join in with our R&D meetings, including our team leader, head decorator and marketing lead as well, as we come with ideas together. It’s really satisfying to see what we are able to come up with, and we try and leave enough time during the week to ensure that we can brainstorm and look at all our creations that are then going into the fridge.

Q: How satisfying is it to see all those hundreds of customer orders being completed each day?
Most days we feel we are doing the right thing, but as a business owner and entrepreneur, I am hard on ourselves. I’ll walk into the store and maybe find 10 things that are wrong with displays or products haven’t been merchandised as well as we wanted, but as a former scientist, I all about detail and precision. I have to remind myself to exhale and step back a little and look at everything that has been achieved with the help of my amazing team and sit in the gratitude from time-to-time, as we are constantly thinking of the next thing.