Julie gandionco autobiography of miss

“(My) first bakeshop opened on January 6, 1981, a day for gift-giving. I asked God to give me this, to make it work, to make it succeed. I asked God for only one, but He gave me more than I ever dreamed of.”

Julia Gandionco never expected to be able to build a corporation. She just for wanted to help her husband with their expenses.

Julie’s Bakery started its brand from a small town in Mandaue City, Cebu. Now, it is a household name that runs more than 500 stores all over the Philippines.

Before the success of Julie’s Bakery, Julia worked as a canteen concessionaire in a large factory in Cebu. It was a huge company that caters to thousands of employees.

The number of bread she served in the canteen needed to be enough for a big crowd.

So in order to keep up with her daily bread distribution, she had to farm out her daily orders to small bakeries.

Joseph Gandionco—her son, and CEO of Julie’s Franchise Corp.—shared how he was there since the start of their business.

“From day one, I was there helping. I was the one available at that time. The older ones were all working, the younger ones were studying. During that time, I just graduated.”

Then, one of the bakers of the bakeries Julia sells to asked her to open her own business and get him as an employee.

This idea led to her first bakeshop in Wireless, Mandaue, Cebu.

Start Of Julie’s Bakeshop

With Julie’s offerings of hot bread every hour and a wide variety of quality products, her first bakeshop was a hit to the Filipino masses.

Soon, her second store opened, then followed by a number of branches around Cebu.

In 1988, the first Julie’s Bake Shop outside of Cebu opened in Iloilo City.

All of the branches were run by their family members together with their partners.

Their company is said to be the one that revolutionized the baking industry in Cebu.

This revolution came from th

I guess every Filipino knows this bakeshop. Now it has become a common bakeshop with more than 500 stores serving every Filipinos. The owner, Julie Gandionco and her sons as far as I remember was already featured on some TV shows. But little that we know how it started from a humble beginning.

The Julie’s Bakeshop story is the kind that hits close to home, particularly because it was born out of the needs of a family which something most people can relate to. When she reached the age of 47, Julie Gandioco’s duties as a mother were becoming less and less demanding. Her children – Bobby, Rico and Opep were already in college, and the rest Oding, Neil and Patty were in high school. Her kid’s educational expenses were going up and her husband’s sugar farm was not doing well. So she thought that there were something that she must do to help her husband.

The Opportunity Knocks

When she saw a job posting as a canteen concessionaire at PHILDACAN, a rattan factory, she applied and got the contract. Since lady luck has already knocking on her doors, it became a hit after one year and she was offered to run another on PHILDACAN’s sister company, Admacor and a year after at the La Union Carbide factory. The three factories were in the vicinity of Mandaue and the employees being fed daily by her canteen totaled 1,780 which is a big task for a neophyte. But despite of this she have the courage to face such a big task. As a true entrepreneur, she never refuse a challenge and she replicates success. She said so herself that “If you can manage one business efficiently, there is no reason why you can’t with two or three. All you have to do is duplicate what you are doing. This just need good organization hard work and a lot of prayers.”

The Birth of Julie’s Bakeshop

Julie noticed that her customers consumes a lot of bread which she bought from different bakeshops at that time. One of her bread supplier, Vicen

More than 90 percent of enterprises are micro-enterprises and 70 percent of new businesses are started by women. This just goes to show that women do most of the startup negosyos, and not many make it to becoming medium and large. The challenge for the Go Negosyo community of successful entrepreneurs is to help inspire and mentor them to be able to grow. This is the reason why we hold our annual Women Entrepreneurship Summit in March, the month that celebrates and honors women.

For this column, the four women featured who have reached the golden age of 80 have continued to share their precious time with Go Negosyo in the past and still continue to do so in the present. These are the matriarchs behind some of the country’s largest businesses and they’re exemplars of a successful woman, and we believe that they serve as the best inspiration to Filipinas everywhere.

We begin with the woman behind National Book Store, the largest chain of Book Stores in the country: Socorro “Nanay Coring” Ramos is one of the most respected matriarchs in the industry. She is even PLDT SME Nation’s 2012 Grand MVP Bossing. Nanay Coring is a Go Negosyo trustee and has been one of the first and most loyal supporters of the advocacy of entrepreneurship. She can still be seen at many of our events, the most recent of which was the launch of our seventh book on young entrepreneurs, which we held in front of National Book Store in Glorietta 5. She is still more than willing to present awards and promote our campaigns with the zeal of any young person.

Though today it may be hard to imagine not having a National Book Store in the nearest mall, there was a time when the business thrived in very difficult times, such as during the Japanese Occupation when many books were censored or ripped apart, forcing them to turn their bookstore into a kind of sari-sari store — shelves filled with household items instead of books; or the time when their newly rebuilt store was d