Why Dutch couple bet Sh75m on Nairobi’s appetite for healthy bread

What they did not anticipate was that their constant relocation would lead them to a business.

Today, the pair are directors of the local Kenyan franchise, BBROOD Bakery & Coffee House, a Nairobi-based artisan bakery that has grown from two outlets and about 30 employees in 2016 to six branches across the city. The bakery currently serves about 1,000 bread and 1,000 pastry products daily.

“We started with an investment of above half a million euros,” the couple says.

BBROOD operates as an international franchise and the journey started in Amsterdam.

“It started with BBROOD in Amsterdam in 2008 and from Amsterdam, we opened a bakery in Kampala. Since we were living in Kampala at that time, I got involved in the bakery, setting it up together with a colleague baker who was a Kenyan. We then moved to Nairobi,” Ms Joenje says.

The bakery concept then was already proving successful in Uganda, but it seems the timing was not right for Nairobi.

“My husband has always worked in the oil and gas (sector), and that’s why we moved regularly. We had once moved for his job to Nairobi, and considered starting up a bakery here but that never happened.”

“Then we moved to Ghana and Cameroon, but we felt like Nairobi needed a real baker. I started looking around for locations to set up the bakery, and after years, we found this location,” Ms Joenje says.

That decision ushered them to Kenya after years of living in what many would consider a nomadic life. The couple left their home in the Netherlands in 1998. They have lived across East Africa, West Africa, and Asia, moving countries every few years to wherever Mr Meijers was working.

“We go to the Netherlands to visit family but for us, home is here, where we live,” they say.

Greater flexibility

That lifestyle also changed a personal choice that gave them flexibility.

“We have no children, only chickens,” Ms Joenje laughs.

“With children, it would not have been possible to travel around the world as we have done. While moving every four years, how can you educate your child? In our environment, many people with children go back to the Netherlands at some point for their children’s schooling. Without children, we had a flexibility to just keep moving around.”

That same mobility that defined their personal lives helped them identify a business opportunity.

“We were also confident of our brands, the quality and consistency. We like healthy, sourdough bread. The bread we make has no preservatives or additives. It is fresh and meant to be consumed within a short time.”

Market gap

“We have also lived in many places across Africa and everywhere we went, we struggled to find good bread,” she adds

Their prior experience in Nairobi between 2011 and 2013 convinced them that the city was ready for a premium artisan bakery.

“We had seen a demand in Nairobi because the major food chains at that time were still more of bakeries than Grand Cafés like they are now, but they made sourdough bread as well. That was an indication that there is a market.” Ms Joenje says.

From the outset, BBROOD, Kenya focused on what it believed was its strongest differentiator, the authentic sourdough bread.

“We started the bakery in 2016 and partnered with the international franchise. We have bread, pastry and coffee but the bread part is the most important. The basis of the sourdough bread, like the spelt, corn, the white oval, is the brown multigrain. It is the same across the BBROOD chain,” Ms Joenje says.

They have expanded their menu to include the Farmer’s Bread, and Mtama Bread with millet and oat sourdough.

Growth acceleration

The company’s growth accelerated after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Since Covid, we have also been growing at 10 to 15 percent yearly, and we are still growing. When it comes to profit, it is a very difficult number to look at since we are reinvesting a lot of the money in the bakery,” Mr Meijers says.

“When it comes to the volumes, initially it was relatively small, a couple of hundred loaves, a couple of hundred pastries. The number of employees has also grown to more than double what we started with,” he adds.

The clientele

BBROOD’s customer base, the directors say, also reflects a growing segment of health-conscious consumers who are willing to pay for premium products.

“Our clientele is mostly middle class and wealthy Kenyans and also expatriates. Our customers are the people who want a healthy product and can afford it. We are not the cheapest bakery, but we are one of the better ones.”

The freshness promise is still central to the brand.

“Everything that we sell in the shop, in terms of products, except for cookies that have a longer shelf life and a few others, has been baked the night before. So, if you buy a loaf right now, it’s guaranteed to be fresh.”

A sustainability touch

The company has also woven sustainability and social responsibility into its business model. Their unsold bread is collected daily and donated to Don Bosco, an organisation supporting disadvantaged children.

“Don Bosco tailor workshop make nice flour bags which we buy.”

Being conscious about environmental sustainability helps them cut on the cost of energy.

“The bakery runs on solar power. We have quite a significant volume of solar panels. Everything runs on solar during the day,” Mr Meijers says.

The challenges

Among the challenges the couple has faced is consistently producing high quality bread.

“Whenever we get new staff, we make sure that they have the same focus because the quality needs to be the same.”
For Mr Meijers, joining the business was a personal turning point.

“I had to quit my job in the oil industry to join my wife here in 2017. At some point we thought, let’s chart our own destiny. We got an investor’s work permit which allows us to stay here rather than being dependent on an employer. We never had the fear of setting up a business in a foreign country,” he says.

What about succession?

“We are thinking very actively about that. We don't have an answer yet. We will still be running this for a number of years, but it's something that we now have to start to work on. We must find the right person or the right company to ensure continuity.”

Expansion beyond Nairobi

The directors argue that the economics of artisan baking require scale and close oversight.

“To make this bakery work in Nairobi, you need to have a certain customer base. If we would start a new bakery, probably in Naivasha or Nakuru, the investment would not likely fit with the customer base there.

“If we would have a bakery in Mombasa, for instance, we would be running it remotely, meaning we would not have been able to guarantee the quality without constantly travelling.”

Even so, their customers from outside Nairobi find their way to BBROOD’s products through courier deliveries.

Lessons in the journey

Their advice to those who want to set up a similar business, especially if they are foreigners?

“You should know the country you want to do business in. Apart from not being there, you also need to understand the business. In the beginning, focus on the bottom line. It's very easy to start a business and then see many other opportunities to pursue. We are not falling into that temptation. For example we are not likely to become a grand café with hot meals, pastas and what have you,” Mr Meijers says,

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