Despite dropping out of school in Form Four, Casper Nyagaka has become a household name in most towns within the country due to his timely invention of baked mandazi christened “KDF”.
This snack is the most sought after in many households within the informal setting but has lately gained traction even to middle income earners in the recent past.
Nyagaka says he started his journey to richness three years ago when the idea of baking “KDF” mandazi first crossed in Mind.
“I started baking kangumu in 2014 at Kawangware area, the business was not bad but next to me was a Ugandan man who used to make softer ones. With time I realised he was giving me stiff competition and I asked for his recipe. But the Ugandan refused,” he told Citybiz.
But with a strong will to be a better baker, he travelled to Uganda to research on how one can bake soft KDF. And lady luck was on his side as he got his lessons at one of Uganda’s bakeries and he returned to Kenya ready to offer a new snack for breakfast.
He set up his first bakery in Huruma, kilometers away from Kawangware where he first baked his “ngumus”.
“To understand more about my passion, my buddy travelled back with me and we set up a new shop in Huruma area, far away from my first competition,” says he.
He notes that though his snack is better known as KDF, it has nothing to do with the Kenya Defense Forces. “The name KDF does not stand for anything and has no links with the Kenyan Defence Forces.”
With the fame of his snack going beyond Huruma neighborhood, his business expanded and he was forced to get more employees.
Today, he has 40 employees working at his bakery on a 24-hour basis. They bake around 100, 000 pieces in a day.
“The staff works day and night to cook about 100,000 pieces daily. Preparation of KDF does not require much skill other than measuring and cutting the mandazi pieces into equal pieces,” he adds.
Each pack containing six pieces of deep fried mandazi shaped in 3D style retail for Sh60 and can last to upto one week before it goes bad.
He is currently the main supplier of the snack to Nairobi, Naivasha, Kitengela .
Every day, he makes Sh50, 000 or more.
“So far so good, more so now that KDF is big,” he says adding his future plan is to venture to bread baking.