Lions Christmas cakes part of decades-long tradition

Christmas is around the corner and the Fish Hoek Lions Club is selling its Christmas cakes.

The Christmas cakes have been synonymous with Lions Clubs for decades and help the clubs to finance community upliftment projects in their areas.

The 1kg alcohol-free fruit cakes currently come in an African-inspired Christmas-themed box and make great gifts at R170. This year, there are also unboxed 500g cakes for R110.

The tradition of Lions Christmas cakes originated in Australia in 1965, and was later adopted by New Zealand Lions Clubs in 1971, according to Lion, Liz Houston.

At a Cape Town Lions convention in May 1974, Barry Cohen, South Africa’s first Lions International director, spoke about Christmas cakes being sold in Australia as a major fund-raiser and suggested to the convention that Multiple District 410, now consisting of South Africa, Namibia, and Eswatini, consider adopting this as a project.

The following year, Ms Houston said, a number of different Lions districts within Multiple District 410 adopted the Christmas cake project, managing their own projects in terms of supplier, packaging, and pricing with the approved Lions recipe, which was likely obtained from Australia.

After many years of Lions Christmas Cakes being sold around the country with different packaging and at different prices, it was decided in 1991 to consolidate a single project across the whole of Multiple District 410.

This saw common packaging and standard pricing with Albany Bakery, which had already been supplying the cakes for a number of years, appointed as the supplier.

Ms Houston said Albany Bakery continued to supply the cakes from their factories in Germiston, East London, Durban and Cape Town until 2013 when it gave notice that it was closing its speciality division under which cakes were produced.

In 2014, she said, it was agreed that Bravo Foods be appointed as the supplier, a relationship that continues to this day.

She said the 1kg Lions Christmas cakes have always been sold un-iced, using the same recipe every year.

Ms Houston said annual price increases have either not been instituted or have been kept to a minimum as the 2023 price of R160 was not increased from the previous year, but has been increased to R170 this year.

In response to the economic times, this year a 500g cake has been introduced.

“All monies raised from the sale of Lions Christmas cakes are used for projects, as opposed to admin overheads. A national Hunger Project is one of the key beneficiaries of the sale of Christmas Cakes, but the various clubs around the country also use a small percentage of the profits to fund their local community projects,” she said, adding that the projects include disaster relief, childhood cancer, and diabetes awareness.

To order a Lions Christmas cake, call Mandy on 084 590 0007.

For the contact details of your nearest Lions club, log on to https://lionsclubs.co.za/clublinks