Commuting to school by bicycle in temperatures as low as minus-15 degrees Celsius in the Eastern Cape town of Molteno was commonplace for award-winning retailer Carel Bakkes.
He simply dressed warmly, pulled a balaclava over his head, swung his leg over the crossbar and pedalled for all his worth to make sure he beat the school bell.
Now, almost half a century later, the owner of The Windfarm rest and service centre on the N2 outside Gqeberha still mounts his bicycle before starting his working day.
The daily grind is similar albeit in a warmer climate.
Bakkes credits a lifetime of resilience as the number one reason for his business success after lifting the SPAR Express of the Year title in the province for the second time.
The announcement at SPAR EC’s annual general meeting actually caught him off-guard.
“My wife said, “Hello? That’s you. You must get up,” he laughed.
When he opened the establishment in November of 2019 to serve motorists heading out west the business model made complete financial sense.
However, lockdown arrived a mere five months later, leisure traveling was banned and his regular clientele disappeared overnight.
Carel and Hannelie Bakkes receive their SPAR Express of the Year award from the group’s regional managing director Solly Engelbrecht, left, and operations executive Cecil Halse. Photo: Leon Hugo
It became a time of looking after the few law enforcement officers who were manning roadblocks on the route.
“I made them butternut soup. They still come here saying they will never forget it,” he smiled.
“We suffered. We worked behind the coffee and pie stations at the SPAR just to keep the doors open.”
Going the extra mile is a distance Bakkes takes seriously for “26 hours per day, eight days a week”.
A customer who bought a sandwich and wanted it toasted is a good example. The Express did not have a toaster but he got the job done at one of the other fast-food outlets in the centre.
As it turned out, the customer was a dry-ice salesman whose product is in great demand among travellers.
“That’s how these connections are made,” Bakkes, whose store employs 25 people from nearby Fitches Corner, Greenbushes, St Albans, Thornhill and Humansdorp, said.
He views his businesses as one team under one roof and encourages Windfarm managers to point out things that can be improved. As long as it is constructive criticism, it will fly with him.
That’s why he believes in investing heavily in staff training. In fact, around 300 programmes are available to his Express and fast-food employees and their respective families.
These courses include everything from tackling gender-based violence to knowing how to respond in the event of an ATM bombing. Scholarships and bursaries are also available to diligent employees.
“The opportunities are there because we believe in people,” Bakkes said.
He attributes his work ethic and ability to triumph against the odds to a major setback during his formative years, a hard taskmaster in his father and several years of working for a construction company in Malawi.
When he was in primary school, life as his family knew it was instantly taken away when their grocery store burnt to the ground during protests. Instead of playing the blaming game, they forged ahead.
“In Malawi I had to survive with little equipment and machinery and had to live with different people. It made me understand life and how to work with people.”
Bakkes has not forgotten what it is to go without, which is why he and his team dished out soup and sandwiches to the NSRI and other rescue services when the Gamtoos River Valley flooded earlier this year.
He also makes sure that the local schoolchildren have something warm in their tummies on cold winter days.
“Life doesn’t come to you,” he said. “You must go and fetch it.”