We were lucky to catch up with Anthony Fisher recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anthony, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I can say confidently that I was not expecting the kind of support that I have today when I started baking out of my home kitchen in 2020. I was out of work due to the pandemic and I had been exploring my heritage by way of food for a long while and I wanted to share that with my people and my city. I was not the first person selling Filipino baked goods in Atlanta, but I knew that I had something unique and interesting to share. So, I started with a few baking sheets, a handful of my own recipes, and an Instagram page. What has happened since has been beyond my imagination!

In my second year, my food was still in high demand. It was clear then that this wasn’t a simple hobby or passion project. Organically, it was becoming something of its own. I spent a great deal of time dreaming about the future and what it was that I really wanted to capture through food. Service, community, and lifting the voices of the Filipino American experience were important to me. And, so I wanted to rebrand in a way that reflected those values.

I thought of a Filipino American hero by the name of Larry Itliong. Larry was part of the “manong generation”, one of the first major waves of Filipinos immigrating to the United States. Larry came to the states by way of Pangasinan in 1929 with big dreams of going to school to pursue a career in law. The “American Dream” had other plans in store for him and the other manongs as they were soon to realize that the only jobs that would be made available to them were low-paying, season jobs on farms and in canneries. These men would travel up and down the West coast, picking crops, or in the Alaskan canneries, packing tinned fish. It is rumored that while working at one of the canneries, Larry lost 3 of his fingers in an accident, earning him the nickname Seven Fingers.

Larry, witnessed and experienced the conditions of this very grueling work and wanted to do something about it. He turned to activism and advocacy for his countrymen, quickly becoming recognized as a key player in the fight for better pay, treatment and living conditions for Filipino farmworkers. In 1956, he founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union in Stockton, CA any by 1965, he head of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. Itliong worked alongside Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta as well. He partnered with them and the NFWA to not only continue the fight for Filipino farmworkers, but to establish a sense of comradery and solidarity with Mexican farmworkers, the first time that this had ever been done!

So, seeing this legacy informed my mission of service to the Filipino/Fil-Am community and wanting to lift and celebrate those voices through food. I knew that I wanted the work that I do to travel down the same road as the one Larry Itliong paved. In January of 2022, I renamed my bakery Seven Fingers Baked Goods and I often get to recount the life and legacy of a hero of mine at my pop ups!

Anthony, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Sure. While I didn’t go into business until 2020, the journey started in 2017 when my lola passed. Lola is the Tagalog term for grandmother.

Losing her felt like losing part of myself. I wanted to find some way of keeping her memory alive, so I started collecting her recipes from my mom, aunts, and uncle and I began practicing them. I fell in love with the baking aspect of FIlipino food and worked at perfecting her recipe for pandesal, a yeasted bread roll that is popular in Filipino cooking.

While my mission is a bit more broad, what got me started and what keeps me going is honoring a memory of a very special person and keeping them with me with every item that I serve!

Seven Fingers Baked Goods is a Filipino bakery pop. We typically have 2 pop ups a month somewhere in the city of Atlanta with a rotating menu of traditional items and goods that apply Filipino ingredients in some unexpected ways. One of my best selling items is my ube cheesecake! It is packed with a jam of purple yam and topped with a coconut milk caramel sauce.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

It takes a village, that is for sure. I have to nod to some of the heavy hitters in the Filipino food scene like Hope and Walter behind Estrellita and Mia and Carlo of Kamayan for being among my first supporters. They believed in my food before I even started selling to the public. They helped give me a strong launch into social media.

Once I got my start, I can’t lie and say that I didn’t grapple with the kind of presence that I wanted to have online. There was a ton of trial and error. It cost me from time to time, but I’ll say this.. not everyone is going to rock with you, no matter how hard you try. Stop trying. Quit focusing on perfect photos or trying to be something or someone that you are not. Your unique story and goods that reflect and represent that genuine expression are all you need.

The moment I owned all of me and all of my vision, not worrying about a rising/falling follower count was when I really started seeing success. I am not in the business of appeasing everyone. As a matter of fact, I will exhaust myself trying and still fail. What I can do is be sincere, put out food that I believe in, and pour my heart out online. Pretty pictures will drive likes, but a true story that people can connect to will get you a tribe. I want that more than a number count on a picture any day.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

I’m not the kind of business person that puts metrics first. I put the food and the customer experience first and hope for the best. I want my branding, the quality of my food, the smile on my face, and the gratitude in my voice to be what fosters that sense of brand loyalty. Again, folks can get bread and pastries from anywhere, but do they feel connected to the good or to the cause behind it? Focus on that. Be kind. Be human. Show gratitude. Be sincere. There’s no secret sauce to it. Be the opposite of what capitalism wants you to be as a business owner and you’ll be just fine.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/sevenfingersbakedgoods

Image Credits
Ube Cheesecake by Brittany Wages