It has always had a reputation as a quality bakery. Now, the list of products it offers at its six branches, made by individual bakers located at each branch, consists of an impressive 104 products. These include breads and pastries made from different kinds of cereals and other ingredients, including barley, oats, teff, a mixture of cereals – 13 different grain types in all.
The large selection, the consistent good taste and freshness are among the attractions for its regular customers.
It added eight additional pastry types four months ago, including Tiramisu, a popular coffee flavoured cake, White Forest and Chocolate Truffle – a dessert of chopped chocolates and cream – and the market is responding favourably, says a manager.
A long standing favourite among customers is Baklava, a rich honey dessert that Mulmul prepares with marmalade flavoured peanuts.
Adding more value, Nadia Abdulla, the bakery chain’s inter-branch manager, says that the bakery has only recently added 10 additional bread varieties that are specifically available to customers of the new Rwanda branch. These additions include Onion, Garlic, Tomato and Rosemary breads, along with the bestseller, Focaccia – a spicy and savoury flat bread made with olive oil, onions and tomato.
A store manager told Fortune that their American and Canadian clients have taken a special liking to the bread made from Teff.
Seblewongel Degefa, an Ethiopian airlines employee, told Fortune that she has been buying bread at Mulmul Bakery since they first opened in 1999. She prefers the barley and oats breads and cites dietary concerns as the main reason why she buys bread there.
“I used to buy an entire week’s supply at the various Mulmul Bakery shops, but now I go to the Rwanda mostly,” she said.
When Mulmul Bakery came into business, it had two branches, one near Dinberwa Hospital in the Hayahulet area in Yeka District and the other near Patriots Building at Arat Kilo, which is no longer there.
Nadia Abdullah, the owner’s daughter, recently completed her studies in the US in International Studies & Sociology and moved back eight months ago.
Much of her time goes towards creating new business and handling large customer accounts. Among such accounts is Bambis Supermarket and Ethiopian Airlines.
“In the beginning, when we first started out as bakers, we used just one quintal of flour a day,” Nadia said.
After five new stores opened in short succession since 2010, business really picked up, and Mulmul’s flour consumption leapt up to a daily average of 40qt.
“We ensure freshness by only opening new stores when a complete bakery is in place on location,” said Tesfa Demeke, operations head.
Himself on the job for the past 10 years, he says that a high level of employee job satisfaction has played a great role in the bakery chain’s success. The bakery has 253 employees; they get three free meals a day, on the job training, performance based bonuses, professional training workshops and medical coverage, including up to six months of guaranteed salaries for any on-the-job injuries, he says. They admired Semret Abate, the owner, for both her knowledge of baking machines and the humane management practies she follows.
Anteneh Tileksaw, a restaurant manager at the Gourmet Corner Café, also chooses Mulmul Bakery because it provides him with healthy choices. He added that the various sizes meet his menu requirements; for instance, pairing barley minis with Veggie burgers, four square breads with club sandwiches and his demand for oats (aja) bread has been increasing recently. Anteneh stated that in the past it was mainly people with diabetes who chose the barley (gebs) variety, but now a large portion of his clientele have adopted it as a dietary substitute.
Solomon Teshome said he joined the bakery after graduating with a management degree from Mekele University. He started from the bottom as a store assistant and did inventory for a few months before becoming assistant store supervisor about a year ago. When the Bole-Rwanda area store opened, he was put in charge of at least two dozen employees. He was beaming with pride as he shared this with a Fortune staff writer and said working in the various roles had given him invaluable experience. He quickly retrieved documents from a week long training program, which upon a glance revealed topics of a course outline: ‘supervisory planning’, ‘supervisory evaluation’ and others. Even while talking, he checked a crate full of minis, small round loaves packed in see-through plastic and removed a few, judging them as inadequate – those would just become livestock feed, he said.
When asked about what was special about the Rwanda branch, Solomon stated that the store layout created a supermarket like shopping experience and that a number of new highly nutritious products had been introduced for health conscious consumers and some were doing exceedingly well. The place is attended to by clean employees wearing aprons on which is written “Fresh from the oven”.
To the left of the entrance stands a 14 layer tray carriage on wheels, each layer filled with freshly baked bread. The carriage is so high it completely blocks off the sight of Africa Avenue’s week day traffic. A steady flow of customers are picking products from the many independent bread and pastry retail spaces. Fumes from the nearby bakery section permeate the entire store with a sweet amalgam of aromas.
Against the mirrored wall partition is a stand-alone pastry display made of quality wood and glass. The well-stocked interior has small yellow labels with clear bold print: Torta, Eclare (for Éclair), Chocolate etc, including prices, visible to all.
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