Tony Tan Caktiong
Tony Tan Caktiong was born on October 07, 1960 to a working-class family from Fujian, China, who migrated to the Philippines during the post WWII era. Tony’s father found work as a cook at a Buddhist temple in downtown Manila and accordingly scrimped and saved so he could open his own Chinese restaurant in order to provide for his family. His father’s hard work and perseverance made it possible for Tony Tan Caktiong to earn a BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Sto. Tomas, the Philippine’s oldest university.
In 1975, Tony ventured into the food business by buying an ice cream parlor franchise from the once famous Magnolia Ice Cream House. The parlor was small and nondescript, which catered mostly to the well heeled shoppers of Cubao. They were customers who could afford to buy cleverly concocted but rather expensive cobblers, floats, milkshakes, banana splits, sundaes and parfaits. Continue reading
Rags to Riches 