Edible pie charts raise awareness of gender inequality

Bakery chain Paul has created Bittersweet Pies — a range of cakes topped with statistics that highlight the country's gender inequality.

Romania has one of the highest gender inequality rate in Europe according to the World Economic Forum, but most citizens are unaware of this gap. Aiming to raise both awareness and funds, bakery chain Paul created Bittersweet Pies — a range of edible ‘pie charts’ that highlight the country’s inequality by displaying the statistics.

Bittersweet Pies were devised in collaboration with creative agency McCann Bucharest and were on sale in Paul bakeries across Romania. The range included the ‘salary gap cake’, the ‘misrepresentation cake’, the ‘startup exclusion cake’ and the ‘glass ceiling double cake.’ All of the desserts were adaptations of Paul’s original cake recipes including the tartlet au chocolat, with statistics written and illustrated on top.

Paul is donating five percent of the revenue from the Bittersweet Pies to the FILIA Foundation, which trains rural women to prepare them for modern professions. We have a number of other projects such as EquiTable and Less Than 100 using pricing to raise aware of the gender gap. Could such schemes work on a larger scale?