Freedom Bakery celebrates a half-century

Watsonville’s Freedom Bakery—the oldest family-owned bakery in the Monterey Bay region—is celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer, marking five decades of providing the community with cakes and other desserts. 

The bakery was founded in 1975 by Tony Liu, a Taiwanese immigrant who came to the United States alone, leaving behind his wife and two sons. 

“I was nine months old when my dad left,” said Tony’s son, Paul Liu. “When we met again, I was ten.”

Paul and his wife, Anna, are now the second-generation owners of Freedom Bakery. 

Early into their marriage, Paul and Anna decided to leave their jobs and help Paul’s father run the bakery. At the time, the bakery was known for its logo cookies. Anna said that they were one of the first bakeries to take the screenprinting technology that had recently been invented for cakes and refine the designs, making them more precise and able to fit the size of a cookie.

This innovation allowed the bakery to fulfill large corporate cookie orders, including one for Target, to commemorate the opening of a new location in Canada in 2017. 

Anna estimated that Freedom Bakery made about 10,000 cookies for that event. 

However, the demand for logo cookies dropped significantly during the 2008 financial crisis. The loss of corporate orders caused the bakery to lose 40% of its revenue in just one month. 

To remedy the situation, Paul and Anna decided to pivot towards expanding their wedding cake operations, which became an increasingly lucrative area of their business. Photo cookies and other types of cakes have maintained their popularity as well. 

During the early days of the bakery, Tony and his wife, Mary, worked long days to keep the business afloat. 

“Work really is what my parents did,” Paul said. 

Today, the bakery has more than 15 employees. Last summer, they opened a second location in Monterey. 

To celebrate the 50th anniversary, the owners have come up with various customer appreciation opportunities, such as social media giveaways and raffles. Paul and Anna will also throw Tony a retirement party next month with friends, family members, and past bakery employees. According to Paul, Tony announced that 50 years was a “nice, round number,” and saw it as an appropriate time to step back. Paul chuckled as he said he suspects his father will still be at the bakery pretty often after his retirement. 

The owners see the 50-year milestone as a prime opportunity to launch what they refer to as the “next phase” of the business: giving back to the community. They plan to start a scholarship to assist graduating seniors from local high schools in affording college. 

Paul and Anna also said they had reached out to some of the elementary schools in Watsonville to invite classes of younger students to take a field trip to the bakery. “Kids are engaged through learning hands-on,” Anna said. The field trip would walk students through the bakery’s daily operations, showing them how a small business works and teaching them the difference between production and consumption. 

“Education is very important to us,” Paul said. He explained that his previous career as a CPA has been useful for managing the bakery. Anna has a background in marketing, which has come in handy for one of her roles as Freedom Bakery’s social media manager. 

The Lius fondly recalled a time years ago when they invited their daughter’s elementary school class to visit the bakery. Paul remembered watching the kids discover in real time that mixing different colors of frosting made new colors. 

“Education helps you across all aspects,” Paul said, and referred to this idea as “cross-training.”

The owners plan to extend their new programs to various PVUSD schools first because the Watsonville and Pajaro community is “so loved by the bakery,” Anna said. 

Paul said he is often asked what his favorite part about running a bakery is. He said that with each cake they make, “For that one day, we make someone’s life a bit better.”