CHEF Jackie Ang Po is one of the most popular and successful chefs in the metro today. No doubt about it. She runs her own food business, Fleur de Lys Patisserie, and Café. She’s all over social media, conducting cooking demos for sponsoring companies and for her countless YouTube and Facebook followers. And she’s actively mentoring promising young chefs for international competitions in her capacity as an officer of the Pastry Alliance of the Philippines (PAP).
But when the pandemic broke out in March 2020 and the subsequent lockdown forced everyone to stay home, Chef Jackie, like everyone else, was caught by surprise. Cafés and restaurants that used to enjoy good patronage suddenly found themselves facing a blank wall since dine-in was not allowed and food delivery and pick-ups were the only semblances of business operations there was. Business suffered from the volatile situation, and it had a domino effect on the local food industry, which came close to a standstill during the lockdown.
So, how do you survive a pandemic?
Resilience in the face of adversity. This is what Chef Jackie used to reinvent herself in the uncertainty of the pandemic. Since dine-in was not allowed, she did not push it and instead focused her attention on food delivery and pick-ups. She traded the menu of Fleur de Lys that had been designed for dining in to family meals and party trays, which was more practical at that time.
“I had been teaching Party Trays in cooking classes since 2018. So, during the pandemic, I converted my food into take-outs. We had to move fast and roll with the times, so we removed many items on the café’s menu that were not going to sell during the pandemic and replaced these with bigger servings of food items that people would order for their family,” explains Chef Jackie.
Apart from changing her menu, Chef Jackie also shifted her mostly actual cooking demonstrations to online demos. Good thing she and her sponsors, mostly food manufacturing companies, product importers and distributors, and reputable food brands, have started shifting to social media before the pandemic hit. So, during the pandemic, when the usual food expos were canceled, she and her sponsors went online to conduct free cooking and baking demos. Such free demos became an instant hit, especially with a captured home market, and so Chef Jackie’s demos became even more frequent—and more comfortable, too, since she was shooting from her own kitchen.
And since she was all over social media anyway, Chef Jackie also converted her regular cooking and baking classes into online classes. What person-to-person classes failed to achieve for her, online classes provided her because, since they are online, even people based overseas could join. Chef Jackie is even able to collaborate with other chefs, such as Cebu-based Chef Rose Marie Lim, for special classes. Students are also more comfortable since they are in the comfort of their own homes as they attend cooking classes. The possibilities proved to be endless, and so, now that the pandemic is letting up and things are almost back to normal, she intends to keep her online classes going.
“Our online classes are effective. I teach every class live so my students know I do it right there without cuts,” says Chef Jackie, who has learned to work cameras, phones, lights, and technical stuff such as wires and microphones, for her Zoom classes.
Now that face-to-face classes are already allowed, though, Chef Jackie is also welcoming face-to-face students back via group classes made through corporate bookings. But what she is most excited about now that the economy is open again is that “we can go back to competition, and we, at the Pastry Alliance of the Philippines, will be able to help aspiring chefs achieve their dreams again.”
