Hong Kong baker mixes her love of cakes and grandparents to help the city’s elderly

Inspired by her grandparents’ love, Karen Chu founded The Good Cake, where proceeds from baked goods buy rice for vulnerable Hongkongers

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Karen Chu, founder of The Good Cake, says she wants to “build a community where young and old coexist” through her social enterprise, from which proceeds from baked goods buy rice for underprivileged elderly city residents. Photo: Edmond So

Published: 7:15am, 24 Oct 2024

Draped in a blue-and-white checkered cloth and laden with pink roses, dahlias and daisies, the table at Hong Kong bakery The Good Cake looks like something one might find in a cafe in the south of France.

A banquet of baked goods ignites the senses: gooey chocolate brownies, rice crispy cakes and a six-inch chocolate cake with fresh strawberries smothered in decadent Swiss meringue buttercream.

“I hope you haven’t eaten lunch because I have lots for you to try,” says Karen Chu, the bakery’s founder, as she plonks a tray of fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate-chip cookies on the table. They smell divine.

The Good Cake may be tiny, but it is doing a lot of good: a portion of the proceeds from its baked goods goes to buying rice for Hong Kong’s underprivileged elderly.

(From left) Chu’s chocolate cake smothered in Swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate brownies and chocolate-chip cookies at The Good Cake, in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. Photo: Kylie Knott

Since establishing the social enterprise in 2019, Chu has baked more than 1,500 cakes, 8,000 cupcakes and 40,000 cookies. That translates to 4.2 tonnes of donated rice, equivalent to more than 65,000 meals.

“Nutritious food is the soul of a community but many people do not realise that one in 2.5 elderly in Hong Kong live in abject poverty,” Chu says. “That is 583,000 grandparents across the city living on less than HK$3,500 [US$450] a month.”