–Chef Britannia

by Vanessa Cort 
SHE is the perfect example of a self-taught woman who has turned her hobby and skill into a growing business.

Fantasy Cakes owner, 39-year-old Britannia Natasha Sobers, says that she always liked cooking and credits her mother with giving her encouragement.

“She had me cooking from the age of l0 years without supervision,” she recalls. And this led Chef Britannia, as she is now known, to study Food and Nutrition at Christ Church Secondary School, which she attended back in 2000.

However, rather than pursuing cooking, she branched off into nursing and was a student nurse at St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital before migrating to Belize in 2007, where she continued her nursing career.

“It seems God had a different plan for me”, Chef Britannia said with a smile in her voice, as she told of how friends persuaded her to follow up her talent for baking.

In particular, she was swayed by someone who tasted one of her baked treats and quoted from the book of Proverbs, telling her that her talent would bring her success.

So, after giving birth to her third child in Belize in 2014, she decided to focus on cake-making, though still considering it a hobby.

But as she began to take orders from friends, who regularly complimented her, Britannia’s popularity grew. She then decided to introduce Guyanese pastries to a skeptical Belizean public.
Here she proved true the well-known saying ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’. Her tasty pastries were a hit and orders began to flow.

Still largely self-taught, this vivacious Guyanese entrepreneur, decided to take a course with an established cake-maker in Belize, “just to make sure I was on the right track,” while also watching YouTube videos on the subject.

And this brings me to this year’s International Women’s Day celebration, last Wednesday, under the theme “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”.

Britannia Sobers is one of a minority of women who have made full use of digital technology to improve their knowledge of their craft.

As UN Women says, “Today a persistent gender gap in digital access keeps women from unlocking technology’s full potential.”

The pervasive threat of online and gender-based violence has been held responsible, along with the lack of legal recourse, for forcing women out of the digital spaces they occupy.

However, UN Women credits digital technology with, “opening new doors for the global empowerment of women and girls and other marginalized groups.”

Certainly, Chef Britannia not only honed and broadened her skills by watching those YouTube videos, but has also used social media to post pictures of her cakes and advertise her business, gaining even greater recognition.
The few negative remarks she has received she refers to as, “part of the territory”, saying, “I just use negative comments to propel me forward to do better.”

In fact, it was while scrolling on Facebook recently that I saw one of her cakes – a Torginol paint can complete with dripping paint brush – that totally fooled me into thinking it was the real thing.

My reaction, which has become Chef Britannia’s banner tag line, “That’s a cake?!” led me to contact Fantasy Cakes immediately, where she confirmed, “My real love is making realistic cakes.”
Her friends in Guyana were so impressed by her ability to produce these true-to-life creations that on her return home in 2020 they ‘forced’ her to get into business by inundating her with orders. And though she had not yet brought her supplies from Belize, she had to buy equipment here and “get going.”

“I wasn’t planning on doing any business,” Chef Britannia laughingly said. But in 2021, one year after her return, she started Pastry Friday, where she offered five pastries for $1,000 and her business ‘took off’.

She has converted part of her home at Second Avenue, Diamond, to accommodate her business and has branched into full-scale catering, following an order she received to supply a canteen with meals and baked goods.

This innovative female entrepreneur is what International Women’s Day is all about – a global day celebrating the achievements of women in all spheres of life – and embracing equity. Keep the ‘Fantasy’ alive, Chef Britannia.