Marjan Milosevski, 26 year old, owner of "Pikasu EM" a bakery and a cake shop - Bitola

"I have never in my life thought that I'm going to be a baker. I didn't even know what is a rolling pin, and not to knead bread or make a cake. Now, I'm not only a master baker and a confectioner, and then I'm even a businessman and an owner of "Pikasu EM", a bakery and cake shop" - starts his story the 26-year-old Marjan Milosevski from Bitola, who eight years ago, after finishing the School of Agriculture Agronomy, started to learn and master the confectioner-baker's profession. Suffering made him do that, but he's not complaining, on the contrary. He's only too glad. "In 2001, when I graduated, there was a mass closing of the factories in Bitola. My parents were left on the street with no money and I started to look for a job in order to finance my education. I literally started as a carrier in the cake shops and bakeries in the town, and now I'm a well known master of this profession and looked-for by the customers "- says Marjan.

It's said that you learn the trade with suffering. Two years he was working as a baker, constantly on third, night's shift, (and that started to bother him by time). "Not because of the job, but more because of the evening going outs... All of my friends had some kind of night life, and I, twenty-year-old boy, I was working only at night. That's why I started to look for something else and I found it - a decorator in a confectioner's shop." That is how his career starts in the confectioner's trade. From a decorator he goes to the department for making filling and then for finished cakes, by which he starts to be recognizable among the "addicts" of a piece of a good cake. "The orders in the cake shop where I worked started to increase, and I also had orders at home from my relatives and friends, then from their friends and relatives, who I couldn't refuse... I was making cakes and baked goods all day and night long... That's how I started thinking of my own business."

It's said that the brave one are followed by a good luck. Marjan started making preparations for a small family business and he found out by accident for the competition of the Business start-up centre in Bitola, for making the best business plan. "I found out about the centre while having a cup of coffee on Sirok Sokak, from a leaflet on the floor. That's where the people from the Employment Centre directed me too.  In BCC they helped me about the business plan, which I made for a couple of hours, I delivered it and to my own surprise it was graded by the highest grade. Wow..." Marjan, as a reward for the first place for the best business plan got an office in the Business- incubator, an opportunity for a micro-credit from 10.000 Euros with a very favorable interest rate for paying within a period of 4 years, free consultant trainings to the value of 2.000 Euros and a joint financing in the registration of his company. "With the trainings I get all the necessary information about the HASAP system which is essential for my business. Also the trainings for communicative skills helped me a lot, as those for economic management of the business, for which I wasn't' very familiar. It's exactly in that part where the Business centre helped me the most.

Marjan is slowly becoming a great competition in the bakery-confectioner's business in Bitola and wider. He's already entering the markets in Ohrid, Prilep and Krusevo. The increase demand made him enlarge the production. He replaced the small shop from 42 m2 with a new one from 160 m2 in which there is a point of sale also. "Now I have ten employees. I established myself as a protective company and a have a shop where 4 disabled people make the decorative details for the confectioner's products"- says Marjan. He's especially happy with the fact that there are satisfied customers. There isn't even one unsold roll at the end of the day or a cake in the shop. The production is increasing constantly because it is looked-for by the demand. Marjan open a new shop in the primary school "Gorgi Sugarev", which works only for the breaks, and he also provides the regular monthly feeding for the students in this school. He hopes that from the next school year he'll be in the other schools too and he's already making an analysis of the market in the Old Bazaar in Bitola. He's searching an appropriate place for selling the products of Pikasu EM. Their specialty is the Zaher cake and they are slowly introducing tastes, not specific for our Macedonian region.

"We offer cakes with more cake mix without filling, with more ingredients of crystallized fruits iced with marmalade. We avoid that standardized image of a cake. We go for something more European, something that is new in the town. To my joy, the people of Bitola accept it."