New Zealand baker Jordan Rondel aka The Caker has sold her business

Jordan Rondel, aka The Caker, will be based in LA, working on other pursuits.

By RNZ

Jordan Rondel, aka The Caker, has decided to call it a day on her successful baking business, selling the boxed cake kits company along with the name she has become known for.

“The Caker brand has been built on the sturdiest of foundations - honesty, commitment and passion. Anouk (Jordan’s sister) and I dedicated a huge chunk of our lives to upholding its purpose and values, ingraining the business into every part of us. My name became synonymous with it, I became The Caker,” Rondell wrote on Instagram to her 71.1K followers on Tuesday afternoon.

“But while stuck on the exhilarating rollercoaster of entrepreneurship for almost 15 years (the last three being the most relentless), I’ve come to realise that I’m me, Anouk is Anouk and The Caker is actually, all of you - the band of cake lovers who supports it and appreciates it, those who make it a part of their celebrations - you are all Cakers.”

The popular fancy cake kits - with flavours like coconut lime and raspberry and flourless dark chocolate gold leaf - will still be sold in Australia and New Zealand, while Rondell will remain in Los Angeles creating recipes, making cakes and working on collaborations.

“Here’s to reinventing yourself at any age. Here’s to calling it when you’re satisfied you’ve given something literally everything you’ve got. Here’s to cool new s***. Here’s to The Caker,” Rondel captioned a post of pictures on her social media.

“I’ll be over here looking for a new ride in the theme park of life for a while, k, bye, love you.”

Rondel closed The Caker bakery on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd in August, 2023. That same year she judged The Great Kiwi Bake Off alongside chef Peter Gordon.

A year earlier, in 2022, Rondel released a carrot cake mix in collaboration with model Chrissy Tiegen, which turned pear-shaped when months later it was reported that Rondel was “shocked” to see Tiegen’s Cravings brand had introduced a line of mixes that looked a lot like her own.

Rondel acknowledged at the time to Stuff that she “didn’t invent the concept of a cake mix”, but said she had worked hard to secure a niche with a “luxury, elevated cake mix”.

“We’re a tiny little pinprick of a brand here and we’ve invested everything we have in building a brand... But now I’m just like, s***, some of that market is being taken by someone else and we’re just being pushed to the side.”