Hilda Bassey Effiong (Hilda Baci), achieved a new world record by cooking – nonstop – over 100 dishes – for 100+ hours from May 11 to May 14, 2023, at Amore Gardens in Lekki, Lagos.
Nowe Segun-Ojo, the Hilda Baci cook-a-thon project lead, assembled teams consisting of medical, production, PR, digital, and culinary experts to support Hilda.
On the sweats behind the success, she said: “I feel very fulfilled. We did this with a lot of integrity, it’s all-natural”.
“It is good for young girls to see that they can dream big.
“Share their dreams with the right people and most importantly, invest in themselves to make those dreams come true”.
Furthermore, she said that finance and brand support were the major hurdles team Hilda had to jump.
“The turn-out exceeded our projection.
“We initially planned for 4,000 to 5,000 attendees over four days, overestimating the crowd,” Segun-Ojo said.
“The number of physical attendees reached over 8,000 by the second day, accounting for arrivals and departures.
“Although data for the third and fourth days are unavailable. Multiplying the figure by two would suggest an approximate total of 16,000 attendees.
“So all of the resources that we planned for in four days finished in a day and a half.”
“Regarding online participation, statistics were available for two days,” she continued.
“By the second day, the online audience had surpassed one million. The comprehensive data is yet to be compiled.”
Sleepless Night
However, Tosin Obembe, who was in frontline at Hilda’s event, also made mention of how the production process went.
He spoke with iBrandTv.
“The team didn’t sleep because even while we were running shifts, their are a lot of other things we put together.
“What we did is we try to split our audience. Our very first audience which is the most important one is the people.
Read more: The Other Side Of Hilda Baci You Don’t Know
“We set up a production design, attached a CCTV camera to the kitchen and placed a camera in front of it.
“We set up a live feed using eight camera production for people to be able to watch on YouTube.
“However, people who are not there and people who are there are both able to watch on the screen.
“Also, we made sure that the food Hilda was making was made available for people to eat in bucket plates or small plate.”
Furthermore, Tosin said there were plans to ensure that Hilda could carry on to the end.
“We know that if she is cooking for 4 days, she will get tired at some point.
“So, mapped out a place where we can set up some level of entertainment in front to keep her entertained while she is cooking.
“We used a CCTV to document our process and the entire thing to ensure that it will be available for use as time goes on,” he explained.
