18/06/2025
โI used to sell bread from street to street.โ
โToday, I own a bakery that feeds over 10,000 families.โ
They once called her โBread Girl.โ
Now sheโs called โMadam CEO.โ
She Sold Bread on the Streets of Ibadan โ But What She Did After Becoming a Millionaire Left Everyone Speechless
Ibadan, Nigeria โ 2005.
It was always the same sound every morning:
โBuy your fresh bread oh! Soft and hot!โ
Tolulope was only 11 years old.
Her mother, Mama Tolu, woke her by 5 a.m.
They would slice the bread, wrap it, and Tolu would hit the streets with a tray on her head and blisters on her feet.
Sheโd walk from Bodija to Dugbe, and from Dugbe to Mokola.
Sometimes boys mocked her:
โBread girl! Your age mates dey chop indomie for house!โ
Other times, grown men tried to touch her.
She hated it.
But she also loved her mother.
So she endured.
Her only escape was in the eveningsโฆ
When sheโd sit on an empty bread crate and read old newspapers.
One day, she read about a woman who became a millionaire from baking.
That day, she whispered to herself:
โI will not only sell bread. One day, Iโll make it โ and the world will eat it.โ
She saved every kobo.
Used her break periods in school to learn how to bake small cakes.
Borrowed a neighborโs oven.
Then got hired by a roadside bakery as an apprentice.
By the time she finished secondary school, she had learned 12 different bread recipes โ and had three customers waiting for โTolu's Bread.โ
In 2014, a church NGO gave her a small grant.
She bought her own oven.
Started baking from a one-room flat.
By 2018, โToluLoaves Bakeryโ became a household name in Oyo State.
Her recipe? A secret blend of milk, love, and resilience.
By 2023, she opened four locations, employed over 80 workers, and launched a program called:
โFrom Tray to Tableโ โ training teenage girls who hawked like she once did.
But in 2025, she did something unforgettable.
She returned to the very street she used to hawk on โ with a convoy.
Not for show, but for service.
She invited every hawking girl she could find.
Gave them school scholarships.
And hired their mothers to work in her newest factory.
Then she unveiled a giant sign in front of her headquarters:
โDedicated to Mama Tolu โ The Woman Who Turned Hunger Into Honour.โ
Her mother wept into her wrapper.
The crowd clapped.
Even the governor sent her a letter of commendation.
Today, Tolulope speaks at international business forums.
She still wakes by 5 a.m., not to hawkโฆ
But to pray for every girl who once walked barefoot and dreamed while selling bread.
Because she wasnโt just building a business.
She was baking back the dignity the world tried to strip from her.
And the โbread girlโ they laughed atโฆ
Now breaks bread with presidents.