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By Chinyere Anyanwu [email protected]
In furtherance of its efforts to boost women’s contribution to the economy, Crown Flour Mill (CFM) Limited, makers of Mama Gold flour, has launched a gender up-skilling initiative tagged Crown Flour Angels (CFA). The initiative was launched recently to help more Nigerian women acquire baking skills or improve on their current baking skillset while strengthening their capacity to build successful baking businesses and become successful entrepreneurs.
The CFA inaugural three-day accelerated bakers’ training held in Lagos recently was facilitated by Omolara Ikpen, International Cake Exploration Societé (ICES) and President, Afoke Osubor, Cake and Fruit expert, among other experts that comprised the capacity building faculty.
The segment targeted for the capacity building initiative is the cake baking segment. The global cake market size, valued at $42.94 billion in 2019, is expected to reach $55.7 billion by 2027, growing at a 3.77 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the period. This impressive annual growth trajectory is an attractive proposition for entrepreneurial young women searching for a lucrative market amid tough global and national economic events. The CFM up-skilling initiative in the cake baking segment, therefore, provides a path for women in the country to achieve their entrepreneurial dreams while staking a claim to scaled economic participatory roles.
Speaking about the capacity-building initiative, the Managing Director of Crown Flour Mill Limited, Ashish Pande, said, “given that women constitute approximately half of the nation’s population and are the backbone of the family which is the bedrock and the foundation of the society, implementing a capacity development initiative in the lucrative cake baking segment will help us make a significant positive impact among that demographic.”
He explained that the number of capacity-building initiatives in the bakery industry targeted specifically at the female gender are inadequate, hence the rationale behind CFM’s decision to change the narrative by introducing CFA, which focuses on deepening the capacity of female bakers. He said the initiative would reinvigorate the women community as well as raise the standards of living across households as women have the potential to contribute more to homes.
Elaborating on the women capacity-building effort, Olayinka Yusuf, Head of Crown Flour Mill Baking School, cited that the tactics deployed by CFA are aimed at ensuring that the up-skilling initiative achieves the targeted impact. He said, “skill improvement is an essential part of any wider entrepreneurial development plan. As part of a bold execution plan that is being put in place to ensure seamless execution of the CFA campaign, we will concentrate on addressing baking-related issues via webinars that will feature well respected experts periodically.
“About 50 women benefitted from the inaugural training exercise and were awarded certificates at the end of the training exercise,” he said.
This new initiative of free cake baking training for female cake bakers at the Crown Flour Baking Academy is yet another timely intervention by CFM to economically empower Nigerian women. It also marks the beginning of what it believes will be a new and exciting journey and trusts that this altruistic initiative will be impactful for female bakers across Nigeria.
CFM, in consultation with bakers, has been working tirelessly to close the skills and knowledge gap in the bakery industry to ensure the industry continues to play the crucial role of supporting Nigeria’s nutritional needs. While it has set up various baking schools across the country, the CFA initiative is another innovative approach to addressing the unemployment and socio-economic challenges of the nation.
