The family of Dr Mere Tuisalalo Samisoni Naulumatua, the founder and chair of Hot Bread Kitchen and a former Member of Parliament for both the SDL and SODELPA, have announced her passing on Friday afternoon after a short illness.
The family says she had just turned 85-years-old.
A family spokesperson says in looking back on her life, Dr Samisoni’s first words would have been to pay tribute to the strength and inspiration she derived from the example of her mother – known as Mere Levu - who raised her and her seven siblings as a single parent in Levuka.
He says ironically for the entrepreneur who created Hot Bread Kitchen, bread was an unimaginable luxury in her young life.
The spokesperson says the modest circumstances of her childhood meant, she always said, that she had imprinted on her a need to work hard and self-improve through education. ‘And it taught me not to be afraid of bullies,’ she said in an interview five years ago.
He further says from Levuka Public School, Dr Samisoni travelled by steamship without a passport to New Zealand in 1956, her ticket was paid for by her paternal uncle, Ratu Nelson Delailomaloma, something she remained proud of and grateful for.
He adds in New Zealand she qualified as both a general and maternity nurse, training at the Christchurch General and Essex Maternity hospitals.
The Spokesperson says it was in New Zealand that Dr Samisoni met her future husband Jimione, who was studying medicine at the University of Otago.
He says they married in Suva, with their reception at the New Peking Restaurant as the young couple could afford this.
He says the newly weds moved to Brisbane after Jimi, a university demonstrator, received a scholarship offer and that was where Dr Samisoni completed her own medical training in both Maternal and Child Health and Nursing Administration and Australia was the Samisoni home from 1962 to 1979.
The Spokesperson also says Dr Samisoni was an award-winning maternal and child health care officer with the Aboriginal and Islander Community Health Service in Queensland and she also became the first Fijian to become a Fellow of the College of Nursing Australia.
According to the Spokesperson, it was an acquaintance with a Brisbane baker called David Bedgood, who coached Dr Samisoni’s elder son at the local rugby club the Kenmore Bears, that might be the most remarkable aspect of her story.
He says that connection sowed the seeds for one of the Pacific’s most successful indigenous and female-led business success stories.
Bedgood travelled with the Samisonis when they returned to Fiji in 1979 where Jimi would eventually become the chief medical officer and then Dean of the Fiji School of Medicine.
Bedgood helped Dr Samisoni master the technical aspects of the in-shop bakery business model that has been the mainstay of Hot Bread Kitchen’s success, but the idea of an in-premise bakery was too much for regulators and Bedgood returned to Australia, frustrated with the red tape and lack of commercial and government support.
But, drawing on a lifetime of overcoming the odds, that didn’t put off Dr Samisoni and the first Hot Bread Kitchen was eventually opened in 1982.
The Samisoni’s original co-founding partners were local entrepreneurs Tony Philp Snr, Tiko Eastgate and Joe Antrea, who eventually sold their respective shareholdings to the couple.
The Spokesman says opening day was only scheduled to be for two hours, but the reaction from customers – bread served fresh and piping hot from on-premise ovens – was so overwhelming that the shop stayed open until 10pm.
He says Hot Bread Kitchen celebrated their 40th anniversary last year with more 750 employees, the majority of whom are women, and 26 shops across the country and another three shops are planned to be opened in the next six months.
He further says the company has been lauded several times as Business of the Year, Employer of Choice for Women, with Dr Samisoni lauded as Businesswoman of the Year.
The family spokesman says that Dr Samisoni took pride – in a very competitive bakery market – that Hot Bread Kitchen was unique amongst its competitors in having its own premises that are always health and safety compliant.
She also cared deeply about gender equality in the workplace, the social and financial empowerment of women and empowerment of the indigenous community through business.
A TripAdvisor review of Hot Bread Kitchen’s Nadi store has an average rating of 4.5/5 stars from more than 750 reviews, including over 420 5-star reviews.
After the success of Hot Bread Kitchen, Dr Samisoni turned to public service and was elected as the MP for Lami Open in the 2006 election for Laisenia Qarase’s SDL party. The December 2006 coup ended her time in Parliament but she was re-elected in March 2018 and then again in 2022.
The Spokesman says in her maiden speech last year, she called on the-then Government to work with the private sector as it was critical to allow ‘businesses to do what we do best without much interference by way of restrictive legislation. We must be treated as part of the solution, not part of the problem.’
Dr Samisoni is survived by her four children, John, Selina, Vanessa and Philip and her twelve grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements will be confirmed later.
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