A 30-year Yuletide business

Ju.D Lao, the Philippines’ fruitcake lady, has been in the business for some 30 years, bringing global renown to Philippine baking and local ingredients through print, TV and the oven in her house. But still, she refuses to go commercial. "You’ll know how small we are by the third week of December," she says, laughing, "because by then, our stocks have all run out."

But Ju.D is content with her homegrown, Yuletide business. "When I first started out, I went to a temple to ask if it was a good business to go into. The man there told me, laruan lang iyan. And he’s right. I don’t get paid for my two cookbooks, and my television cooking show. And I still bake the fruitcake personally."

Ju.D’s TV show is aired in some 40 countries and filmed at the Dai station in Taiwan (owned by the Tzu Chi Foundation, which has done over 100 missions in the Philippines). And her fruitcake? "In this life we have to make other people happy. We are just passing bye, and we can bring nothing with us when we die," she says. Which is why it’s primarily something she does hands on.

On TV Ju. D promotes Philippine ingredients from kaong to atsuete. In her new vegan children’s cooking show she has fascinated Taiwanese with camote Q and ice cream in hamburger buns. Her fruitcake is a favorite among foreigners, but it’s primarily something she does for the Philippines.

"I like to wake up at 4 am to bake. Sometimes I do deliveries personally," Ju.D says. "I used to start at 7 am, but we’d be interrupted so many times by phone calls, so we’d be working until midnight. When I start at 4 am there are no calls and we get to sleep at 8 pm."

Ju.D can always ask her driver to do the deliveries, but she does it better, because she’s got her routes down pat (her corporate account). At 4 am she can go to Makati, Manila, Quezon City and Pasay and be back by 6:30 am if she does it herself. "My driver tends to follow the jeepney routes which have more traffic. I can do the side streets," she says.

Ju.D even answers phone inquiries herself and sometimes will end up listening for 45 minutes to the life story of a stranger in doing so. Ju.D even personally designed her own packaging, beautiful boxes on red, blue, green or gold (depending on which product you buy). Her clients sometimes save her boxes to use during the year since they are so beautiful.

Her fruitcake is borne straight from the heart, made with the freshest ingredients, and baked with the help of out of school youth. The unused ingredients (for example, egg whites) are donated to special charities.

Is all this personalism good for business? No. But as the man in the Chinese Temple once told her over 30 years ago, "laruan lang yan." She adds, "my clients love the personal touch. They are pleased that the one who bakes the fruitcake is the same on who talks to them."

She recalls how one regular client met her at her door at 7 am because he wanted for once to meet her personally. "I told him, ‘I’m not dressed I’m sorry.’ "

Whether it’s politicians, socialites, celebrities, or people who rode a jeep to her home, everyone enjoys her products. It could be her delicious vegan Ginger Cookers, her Chewy Chewkies (the world’s first fruitcake cookie), her Classic Fruitcake, Ju.D Gold ( a dark and light fruitcake), Ju.D Blue (which is made with blue mountain coffee and Kahlua coffee liquer) or her newest product, the Ginger-Cranberry Fruitcake.

Ju.D loves cooking and baking. Her parents, she says were creative cooks (she can still make the fish head noodles her father invented). She adds, "their only vice was eating and cooking. It brought good friends to their home and filled our stomachs. And it’s good for the health and heart."

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Ju.D

50 Greenmeadows Ave., Valle Verde

633-1188/633-0260