Julie Gandionco Opened Her First Bakery at 50 With No Baking Experience
A dressmaker with three canteens
Julie Gandionco started out as a dressmaker. She became a canteen concessionaire to add to her husband’s income while they raised eight children. In the 1970s, she operated three canteens for factories. Her first was at a rattan factory.
The bread she could not get
She saw strong demand for bread among factory workers at breakfast and merienda. The bakeries could not give her enough fresh bread. She decided to make her own.
Fifty, with 19,000 pesos
She had no experience in the bakery business. She hesitated at first. She put her lifetime savings of P19,000 into secondhand equipment. She was 50.
Julie’s Bakeshop opened on January 6, 1981, in Mandaue, Cebu. Fewer than five people worked there, including Gandionco. She later described the shop as the result of “a growing need for bread products and a strong faith in God.”
Hot bread in plain view
The shop baked bread where customers could watch and served it hot with a friendly greeting. The shop did well enough that she gave up the canteens to run it full time.
From one shop to 600
Accounts of the early growth differ. One says 10 more branches opened three years in. Another says the bakeshop reached 10 branches in that time. Either way, the family opened a bakery supply company, RJ Commodities, to serve them.
By the late 1990s, the bakeshop had 200 branches run by family, relatives and friends. The goal grew from being the top neighborhood bakeshop to having a Julie’s in every barangay, town and city.
Julie’s Bakeshop now has over 600 stores. About 55% were company-owned and 45% franchised as of 2024. It is the largest bakery chain in the country by store count.
