Who doesn’t love a doughnut? Follow your cravings to the delicious selection of J.CO treats.

Founded in Indonesia, they now have over 100 branches across Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and China.

But did you know that J.CO’s founder, Johnny Andrean, first started by running a popular salon chain in Indonesia?

After that, he opened the first BreadTalk branch in Indonesia! But he wasn’t going to settle for that: he wanted to open up a food business of his own.

This is the story of the doughnut shop that won our hearts with their wide range of creative doughnut flavors.

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💯 A fresh start  

Johnny’s parents owned a salon, and he wanted to follow in their footsteps.

In the 1980s, he moved from Pontianak to Jakarta and opened his first salon! His business grew quickly, but he never stopped learning.

He studied at schools in London and Paris to know more about fashion and makeup.

He had a hard time keeping hair stylists working at his salon instead of going to other businesses

But Johnny generously shared his lessons from studying abroad, which made the stylists want to stay with him!

In 1998, Johnny faced his biggest challenge yet. 19 of his salons were looted during the financial crisis.

Still, Johnny refused to give up on his business. He first founded a hair stylist school called Johnny Andrean School & Training.

This helped people find jobs during the crisis. Then they could work at his 164 salons all over the country!

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🍞 Trying something different

But he wasn’t going to settle with just salons.

He set his eyes on franchising the popular BreadTalk brand to Indonesia.

To prepare well, Johnny went to Singapore to study how the bread was made. He opened the first BreadTalk outlet in Jakarta in March of 2003.

He wanted the BreadTalk branch to be exciting for customers. So he made sure that people could watch the bread being made!

BreadTalk was a great success, but he knew he could do more.

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🤔 New beginnings

Johnny knew he wanted to start a doughnut shop. At first, he wanted to buy a franchise from abroad.

But when he looked at different brands from the US, Australia, and Japan, he wasn’t impressed.

He wanted to make delicious doughnuts with the best ingredients from all over the world. He got chocolates from Belgium, matcha from Japan, and almonds and honey from America.

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🍩 Standing out from the crowd

Johnny opened the first J.CO outlet in 2005. They made sure J.CO doughnuts weren’t just delicious—they gave them creative names, too!

Customers loved the doughnuts named after celebrities, like Berry Spears, Jacky Chunk, and Avocado DiCaprio.

Their most famous doughnut is the Alcapone, which is named after a famous American gangster!

“J.CO communication is very fun,” said Natasia Liu, J.CO’s international franchise director. “We want to give each product a personality.”

Johnny also wanted to sell the doughnuts at a lower price—$0.49. Competitors like Dunkin’ Doughnuts and Krispy Kreme sold their doughnuts for $0.61 each.

And they release new products every 3 months, like doughnut sandwiches and croissant doughnuts!

To stand out among other brands, they adjust their flavors for each country.

"In Hong Kong, people are very health-conscious,” said Natasia. “They don't like things to be very sweet, so we adjust to the local taste."

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🤩 Here and now  

J.CO now has 300 branches all over the world, with 45 branches in the Philippines and 18 in Malaysia.

Now, they’re hoping to expand more in the Middle East as well.

Johnny Andrean has come a long way from running salons in Indonesia.

But he followed wherever his dreams led him—and he made many people happy along the way.