By Rebecca Odhiambo
A TikTok account with the username @veronicavero124 claims that Malted Bakery is recruiting workers in Nairobi for morning and evening shifts, with the shifts running from 7 am to 3 pm and 4 pm to 11 pm. The post includes a video with the Malted Bakery logo and workers presumed to be working at the company wearing uniforms with the Malted Bakery badge.
The post instructs applicants to only contact a WhatsApp number provided in the account’s bio. At the time of review, the post had garnered 159 likes,45 comments,17 saves, 16 shares, and 8.6k views, indicating it had significant exposure among job seekers.
The account primarily shows job vacancy posts, presenting itself as a source of employment opportunities.
Background
Malted Bakery, officially operating as Malted Bake Enterprise, is a Nigerian bakery and food production company established in 2010 by siblings Adanna and Chike Okafor. The founders, described in some of the company’s material as Adebayo and Ifeoma Adekunle, built the brand around a family passion for baking passed down through generations. The company initially provided breakfast services before expanding into commercial bread production in 2016.
Currently, it manufactures and distributes a range of bread products under the Malted Family Loaf brand. According to the company website, it operates three state-of-the-art bakeries located in Enugu, Abuja, and Lagos, with fully and semi-automated production lines running 24 hours a day. The company produces more than 100,000 loaves of bread daily, supplying stores and distribution depots across Nigeria. The bakery markets itself as an artisanal, culturally rooted brand, emphasizing traditional Nigerian bread-making techniques and family recipes over mass-produced methods and positions itself against artificial additives in favour of authentic, community-oriented baking.
Verification
The fact that the TikTok post directs interested applicants to only contact a WhatsApp number displayed in its profile rather than an official company recruitment platform is a glaring red flag.
Piga Firimbi contacted the number provided on the account, 0734743587, posing as an interested job seeker. The respondent requested only basic personal information, including full name, age and location, without requesting a curriculum vitae, academic qualifications, work experience, or conducting any preliminary screening. The individual disguised as “Madam Veronica” invited us to report the following day at Avenue House, 5th floor, Room 4, along Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi, instructing us to ask for “Madam Veronica” and carry only a national identification card.
Genuine recruitment processes typically involve an application process, verification of qualifications and communication through official company channels before candidates are invited for interviews. In this case, none of these standard procedures were followed.
A lookup of the mobile number provided in the account bio indicates it is an Airtel line belonging to Odhiambo Collins rather than “Veronica” as the WhatsApp and TikTok account claims.
On the right is a screengrab confirmation of the real phone number’s owner and on the left is a screengrab of the number displayed on the TikTok account’s bio
To independently verify the claim, we also sent an email to Malted Bake Enterprise, seeking confirmation on whether it is conducting recruitment in Nairobi or has operations in Kenya. At the time of publication, the company had not responded to our inquiry
We further reviewed the official website of Malted Bake Enterprise. The company states that it only operates bakeries in Enugu, Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria and provides no indication that it has a branch production facility or recruitment office in Kenya. Likewise, there was no recruitment notice matching the TikTok advertisement on the company’s official website or social media platforms.
The absence of any official announcement, coupled with the informal WhatsApp-based recruitment process and the company’s lack of operation in Kenya, undermines the credibility of the claim that Malted Bakery is recruiting workers in Nairobi.
Verdict
The claim that Malted Bakery is recruiting workers in Nairobi is FALSE.
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