81-Year-Old Super Mum Runs 27 Hot Bread Shops

Being a businesswoman has been very rewarding for Mere Samisoni. Being a mother is also a wonderful experience for the politician and founder of Hot Bread Kitchen (HBK).

Saturday 09 May 2020 | 13:17

Staff Writer

Hot Bread Kitchen Fiji Director Mere Samisoni on May 8, 2020. Photo: Ronald Kumar

Being a businesswoman has been very rewarding for Mere Samisoni.

Being a mother is also a wonderful experience for the politician and founder of Hot Bread Kitchen (HBK).

Today, 39 years after establishing the first Hot Bread Kitchen outlet at Sunderjees building opposite MHCC, Suva, they have 27 shops throughout Fiji and employ 750 staff.

Even though I was trained and orientated as a Public Health Administrator, what was learned at home from my parents and siblings, school, Nursing career and University Education at both USP for my Masters in Business Administration (MBA) and Doctorate as a Distant Student at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Mooloolooba, Queensland, Australia all integrated holistically and at process levels.

These have, indeed, linked up well to serve my company mission that ensure standards of service delivery to the public customer and staff or internal customer are empowered with information that sustain their loyalty.

I have four companies today, Samisoni Enterprises Pte Ltd (SEPL), Corporate Management Services Pte Limited, Solar Pacific (Fiji) agent for Nokero (SPFaN) and Samisoni Farms (SF).

Today we are diversifying into the green and brown economies while similarly addressing climate change pollution issues and corvid-19 pandemic clean up for food security.

We do this via our new product Karyon Technology, a bio-organic soil conditioner which works on the microbes and ecosystem in the soil using nature to change nature away from using too much chemicals in fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides.

The result of this is the food that we eat are making us sicker and hence the increase in non communicable diseases like, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune disease is a condition arising from an abnormal response to a normal body part. For example, Celiac disease, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Rheumatoid arthritis etc.,

How do you manage the demands of professional and personal commitment?

Daily management list with priorities

What are some of the important lessons that you learnt from your mother that has helped you grow in life?

Her spiritual knowledge that empowered me.

What were some of the memorable moments you spent with your mother that you would cherish for the rest of your life?

How she nursed me with love and tenderness whenever I was sick.

If you could do any other job, what would it be?

I enjoy nature’s beautiful scenery, colours, underwater scenes around the reefs with different coloured fish, I like making things like cooking, sewing and I like order. So, I would like to be an investor manager of digital assets options and make more money in the new economy to help the disadvantaged and needy.

If you could turn back time, what would you change in your life?

Ask for more legal advice on shareholding distribution of the family companies where I had invested all my money, time and effort and got little back for all that.

What is your advice to young females who are climbing up the corporate ladder?

Maintain high standard of integrity.

What advice would you give to young mothers?

Enjoy your motherhood.

What is your Mother’s Day message?

Enjoy your Mother’s Day according to your choice.

Facts:

Hobbies: I like walking, reading and listening to the news.

Favourite food: Sea food, miti with salad vegetables

Favourite book: The Killing Of Uncle Sam. The Demise of the United States of America by Rodney Howard-Browne & Paul L. Williams. 2018.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? I exercise and/or swim in the pool.

Your role models: Without a doubt my darling late mother.