By Ramesh Mathew/Reporter
With Christmas and New Year round the corner, the sale of cakes at the local bakeries is picking fast and the bakers are cashing in on the demand, notwithstanding the rise in the prices of essential ingredients such as flour, eggs, sugar, and dry fruits.
Most bakers feel that the increased arrival of western expatriates in the country since the year 2000 has boosted the sales of different varieties of cakes.
“Even though small quantities of plum cakes used to be sold at the major supermarkets before, the sales experienced during the second half of December since the new millennium had no parallels before,” said an outlet owner.
According to the outlet owner, most outlets used to restrict themselves to home deliveries earlier as sales were very minimal.
“The sale that most major bakeries recorded for the National Day celebrations was in fact a bonus for them as customers then were mainly from the corporate institutions and companies. However, for celebrations like Christmas and New Year, a large number of individual orders are also received at the bakeries,” said the manager of a city bakery.
Inquiries at the country’s oldest bakery, Oriental Bakery on Airport Road found it has a large number of individual and institutional orders to be delivered, both for Christmas and New Year.
“Each community has its own likes and dislikes and that is evident in the tastes and flavours that it chooses for the cakes for which they place order,” said the bakery, which is through its 50th year of
formation.
Plum cakes are sold for ranging from QR30 to QR65 per kilo at the bakery.
Besides ordinary plum cakes, decorated with mild icing, other varieties as chocolate, vanilla, coffee and dry fruits also have a large number of customers, said the bakery.
A source at Tastes, a new entrant in the production of Indian and Arabic sweets, also reported good sales on account of the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
“Though the prices of ingredients like sugar and eggs have surpassed all previous levels, we have received quite a large number of institutional orders for plum cakes this year,” he said.
The company sells cakes starting from QR30 to
QR80 per kilo.
Bakeries at Safari Mall and Quality Hypermarket too have acknowledged good response that they have received during the season.
A manager at Safari bakery said his company has a section, specially dedicated to the sale of Christmas cakes.
Bakemart, which has a number of outlets across the country too are in the forefront in the cakes’ business. “Our clients are from many communities, including Asians, Arabs and western expatriates,” said a manager.
