Wilton Fernandes has transformed a traditional business into a modern pastry brand
Patisserie Victoria stands tall among the new pastry and confectionary shops that have begun to titillate the Goan palette. With its roots firmly placed in the picturesque village of Majorda, the original home of the confectioners and bakers, Patisserie Victoria has expanded and now has two outlets in Margao and Colva. Behind the success of this venture we have Wilton Fernandes, a firm believer in waking up and baking his dreams into reality.
Born in Majorda, Wilton recounts how baking was and continues to be a part of his maternal family, “My grandfather runs a prominent bakery and confectionery in Ponda. My uncle followed my grandfather’s footsteps and took to baking, albeit on a slightly grander scale. My uncle, a pastry chef by profession as well, went as far as to receive a gold medal in a UAE Baking Championship where he had to bake a three layer wedding cake. And I soon began to follow his footsteps. I was fascinated by baking as a process. It involved measurements and precision and unlike cooking even the tiniest of tweaks in a recipe could affect the final product greatly.”
Wilton began persuing his dream first by taking a Catering and Restaurant Management course in Fr. Basilio Andrade Higher Secondary School in the village. Through this course, he received his first glimpse of what it would be like working in a professional kitchen. Having completed both a Bachelors and a Masters degree in business administration, Wilton began his career as a pastry chef by working for hotels and resorts in Goa like Park Hyatt and Dubai. However, his heart was set on opening up his own confectionary business. Amidst all of the training that he received, what stands out is the year he spent in London where he worked under the tutelage of Hell’s Kitchen and Masterchef USA fame, Gordon Ramsay. “It was a great learning experience,” he says. “I worked in his kitchen for nine months. I am yet to implement much of the techniques that I’ve learnt there because that was more of a dining experience, while I choose to focus on the sweeter aspect of food.”
While in London, Wilton also worked for the Ivy group of restaurants owned by Richard Caring. He also participated and won a nationwide No-Bake Dessert challenge. His education, he believes, has not had much impact because work experience had a louder voice than a degree or a course certificate ever did. Prospective employers were only on the lookout for those chefs that could walk the talk.
“Working in bigger kitchens made me realize that there was no innovation being done. Chefs recreated recipes that were passed on without having the freedom of going out on a limb and any alterations in the age old recipes were frowned upon,” he states. It was the freedom of getting to experiment with new recipes and baking techniques that drew Wilton towards opening his own pastry shop.
“Working in bigger kitchens made me realize that there was no innovation being done. Chefs recreated recipes that were passed on without having the freedom of going out on a limb and any alterations in the age old recipes were frowned upon”
Wilton fernandes
While his father runs and manages the much sought bakery in their ancestral village of Majorda. Wilton who has cut an independent streak, owns the stores in Margao and Colva. The outlet at Majorda and those in Margao ad Colva cater to different tastes and requirements, hence, the same items are not available in all the shops.
Wilton opened his first pastry shop in 2015 with the awareness that he wanted to grow as a company. He says, “Saving money is not an asset, investing in your dreams has a higher payoff. I remember, when I started off, as we were a small scale industry we were liable to pay only two per cent of the value added tax, whereas now the value added tax with the inclusion of GST has increased to eighteen per cent. Furthermore, the VAT is twenty eight per cent on electronic products. I knew I would require high scale equipment. With the revenue I had managed to garner at that time, I chose to invest in quality machinery. It was a big risk at that time because the chances of my business not taking off were higher. But in the end that risk did pay off. If I had saved instead of spending on the machinery, I would have to spend approximately four times the same amount of money now than what I had to then on the machines.”
The cakes and confectionaries are made from scratch in the warehouse. And quality ingredients are imported from Belgium and United Kingdom. The tariff on these products is slightly high which results in the baked goods being sold at a higher price range. But the taste of the products is what makes our customers always come back for more. Besides managing both the stores, Wilton also looks after the production aspect as well as plays a keys role in recipe development.
“Patiserrie Victoria does not rely on seasonal sales that are prominent especially during the festive seasons. Wilton believes that the income earned during the festive seasons acts more as a bonus for the amount of work put in throughout the year. The period of October to February is the busiest as it encompasses the festival season.
In his next phase of business development, Wilton looks forward to retailing his cakes to the bigger supermarkets in Goa. Currently he is in conversation with a couple of the super stores; and if everything works out according to plan, consumers will be able to buy cakes and pastries from him all over Goa by 2020.
Goan delicacies are a major hit locally and because of their success, Wilton plans on expanding more into that market. In doing so, he wants to sustain the traditional baking legacy of his homeland especially when it comes to Goan sweet meats. Whether it is production on a small scale or mass production for a wider audience, the key focus here will always remain on quality and consistency.
On being asked about his most ambitious creation thus far, Wilton answers, “I had to bake and deliver a 60th anniversary cake all the way from Margao to Pomburpa which is about 50 kilomteres apart. Besides being intricate in design, the cake had four different layers in a single tier and it weighed twenty kilos. Transporting the cake in the heat that Goa is known for was no mean fit that we managed to successfully pull it off.”
Given the current global situation, especially when it comes to conservation and preservation of the environment, Patisserie Victoria, in both of its outlets has been trying to minimize its use of plastic in a bid towards promoting a sustainable lifestyle by moving towards use of paper straws and bio-degradable packing. The young entrepreneur has made his mark among the younger generation who crowd his outlet as if there is no tomorrow
