With fierce competition, it is no cakewalk for Madurai bakeries

Madurai bakeries sell 60,000 cakes for New Year, with butter cream & fresh cream cakes ranging from ₹400-800.

With the trend of cutting cake while celebrating New Year catching on in Madurai, an estimated 60,000 cakes have been sold at bakeries across the city. The price of an one-kg of butter cream cake was sold for ₹400 to ₹600, and fresh cream cake for ₹600 to ₹800.

The tradition of distributing cakes for New Year started in ancient Greece and Rome and spread to the rest of Europe. Initially, these cakes were baked with a coin or a gift and it was believed that, whoever gets the piece with the coin would have a prosperous year ahead.

“It was during the British rule that people started celebrating new beginnings with cakes. ‘Rich Plum’ cakes were sold for New Year. The cake mix was fermented for a month to even six months. During the 80s, a new variety of ‘sugar-syrup’ cakes gained popularity. Several innovations followed before ‘butter-cream,’ ‘fresh cream’ and ‘flavoured’ cakes’ entered Madurai bakeries,” says ARM Ramasamy, president, Madurai Bakers’ Association.

Since New Year is celebrated by people of all faiths, sales of cakes can soar up to two times at premium outlets and four to five times in others, when compared to ordinary days.

D. Purushothaman, a baker in Samayanallur, a Madurai suburb, says only four or five cakes are sold on a normal day. But 50 cakes are sold for New Year.

“What we sell in a week is sold on a single day,’ says P. Anand, a baker in Tirunagar.

The cake craze is only a decade old, the reason why bakeries have proliferated in Madurai. In the last five years alone, the number of bakeries have doubled.