Not many people know that a veteran TV host played a major part in getting Eng Bee Tin products become popular in the ‘80s.
At that time, the Chua family was not too active in making sales pitches for their products, but TV host Cory Quirino became instrumental in helping hopia and tikoy known as products of Eng Bee Tin.
Eldest son Royce Gerik Chua, who was not even a speck in his mother’s womb at that time, simply shared how Cory got wind of their family’s products. Gerik is a fourth-generation scion who started working for the family business since he was in high school.
“Ma’am Cory’s program was going to feature Chinatown and Ongpin at that time and she interviewed Chinese fire volunteers, doctors, and visited temples and drugstores,” Gerik shared. “My dad was one of the fire volunteers. That was also the reason he was tagged as sira ulo by people around him.
“He was known in Binondo as the one who always volunteered to re-direct traffic on the streets. His family was also known at that time as the one who had a business that no one was patronizing. It was losing money.
“Instead of manning his store, my dad was re-directing traffic on the streets. He did that so the fire truck would be able to go out. Then, when the truck was out, the fire volunteers would climb the truck. That was his outlet. He was not worried about his own problem, but he simply wanted to help others.
“My dad helped Ma’am Cory’s crew to go around Chinatown. He also helped in talking to the Chinese businessmen who didn’t want to be interviewed then. They didn’t want to face the TV cameras.
“The advocacy of our family is fire. If my dad was not featured by Ma’am Cory before as a fire volunteer, she would not return to also feature my dad as a hopia-maker.”
At that time, Cory saw the “special hopiang ube” and curiously asked what it was. “‘I invented that and we are making that,’ my dad told Ma’am Cory,” Gerik said.
Cory featured how the hopia was being made at that time using a manual machine. The senior Chua was interviewed on TV for the first time as a hopia-maker. When he was asked where hopiang ube was available, he simply said, “Sa 628 Ongpin, in front of Binondo Church.”
When the feature came out on TV in the late ‘80s, people came to the store looking for hopia. From being just a simple hopia factory, it evolved into becoming a Chinese deli selling an assortment of Chinese food products.
Through the years, the food brand has become a byword in the food industry.
In 2009, when Gerik was in college at the University of Sto. Tomas (UST), he spent the rest of the day after school in Ongpin, where their family business is located.
“Even when I was still in high school, I was already involved,” Gerik said. “Among all of us, we are three children, I was the one who got involved in the business the earliest.
“In 2009, my father made me try to run the business. Not all of our ideas matched all the time. Customers nagsasawa din even if you’ve grown the business. So nag-taper off at that time.”
When Gerik took charge, he added more locations for the stores. “From only 11, we are now in 45 stores, all family-owned,” he said. “No franchises.”
The stores are all over Luzon. The company has yet to expand in the Visayas-Mindanao region. His brother Royce Gerald and sister Roche Geraldyn are also helping in the business already.
Gerik’s dad is the first president of the Filipino-Chinese Bakery Association who staged the first Bakery Fair back in 2001.
With Gerik’s tenure now as president, his family has come full circle in leading the Bakery Fair, which runs March 2 to 4 at the WorldTrade Center.