Rédaction Africa Links 24 with lexpress
Published on 2024-03-04 02:45:00
One of the photos of Voahangy Rasetarinera taken by the American local press.
Voahangy Rasetarinera has secured contracts for pies and cakes with large American companies. Recently, Tesla, Elon Musk’s company, placed an order for four thousand units.
Voahangy Rasetarinera and her family have been living in the United States since 1997. They reside in San Jose, in Silicon Valley, California, where major companies such as Google, Apple, LinkedIn, Facebook, Amazon, and Tesla are located. Voahangy Rasetarinera is a baker and opened “The Giving Pies” in 2017.
On February 14th, her business secured a contract with Tesla, the company of American billionaire Elon Musk, who ordered four thousand pies worth $16,000, to be delivered on February 20th and 22nd. The company did not pay the agreed advances and even canceled the order. The owner of “The Giving Pies” expressed her frustration on Instagram. “We invested $2,000 for this important order, which may seem little for a large company, but is very important for our small business, while they canceled their order,” she said. “The Giving Pies” had to buy additional ingredients, increase staff, and decline other orders to honor its largest order, the one with Tesla. Voahangy Rasetarinera’s incident was covered by the American local press and social media, and under the pressure of media attention, Elon Musk reimbursed $2,000 for damages caused to “The Giving Pies” and placed a new order for three thousand pies to be delivered at the beginning of March.
Success
The community of her city as well as support from other countries poured in, showing their sympathy towards the Malagasy baker during this controversy that marked her entrepreneurial life. Voahangy Rasetarinera used to be an executive assistant. She started making her small pies in her kitchen and first delivered them to Stanford University students. The small pies, the flagship product of the company, gained popularity in her city afterward. “There is competition, but everyone has their share of the market. The secret of my small pies lies in the variety of flavors and especially in their low sugar content. Thirty-five different flavors for my pies. Americans love sweet things, but surprisingly, they love my less sweet pies,” explains the baker.
A pie is sold for $2.90 plus a sales tax of 9.375%. The charitable aspect of her business also attracts Americans, earning her frequent appearances on local channels and increasing her popularity. It is the customers and companies that come to her, as Voahangy Rasetarinera does not have time to do commercial outreach for her products.
Read the original article(French) on lexpress.mg
