In Spring 2020, Britain’s Filipino community, the largest Southeast Asian diaspora in the UK, shut their doors for the COVID-19 lockdown. As with many diaspora communities, food is central to maintaining a connection to one another and home. This was made possible by Thirdy Ado, who drove all over England during lockdown to deliver Filipino fast food delicacies from the well-loved Pinoy restaurant, Jollibee. 

Thirdy Ado has been living in London for twelve years and considers the city his home. Hailing from Masbate Island but sitting virtually with me in his Chiswick office, he tells me that he misses the warm weather, his brothers, and all Filipino food. As an international filmmaker and photographer, Thirdy’s work took an unexpected turn during the 2020 lockdown.  

“The story of the Jollibee is surreal, you know. During the pandemic people couldn’t get out of their houses, but because I work in the media, I was allowed to travel anywhere for work. One day I decided to go to Jollibee, which is like the Filipino version of McDonald’s, to pick up some food, and I posted a picture jokingly asking: ‘who wants a Jollibee?’ I received a lot of serious responses. It was the second month of lockdown and people were sad, desperate, and tired of their own food.” 

“Then I thought, ‘Oh my god, maybe I can deliver Jollibee to these people?’ It started with around ten people ordering from my close community, because I just wanted to make them happy. At the time I didn’t have much work, so I asked for a £10 delivery fee. I had so many buckets of ChickenJoy and boxes of Jolly Spaghetti in the back of my car – it took me five hours to deliver to everyone! It was so tiring, but everybody was so happy when I arrived. I could see it in their faces: they were so thankful to be able to taste the Jollibee food again.” 

“When everyone posted it on social media, it went viral in the UK Filipino community – from Wales, Manchester, Somerset. Everyone wanted me to get them a Jollibee.” 

“I thought, no, I can’t deliver food to every single house. Instead, I contacted community leaders in every town so that they could take everybody’s orders and then distribute the food to everyone after I dropped it off. I’d receive a minimum of 60 orders in every town and tell Jollibee in Earl’s Court what I wanted the night before. Other click-and-collect customers were fighting inside Jollibee because they saw me putting bags of food in my car non-stop.”

One town that Thirdy delivered to was Taunton, Somerset. It takes around three and a half hours to drive there from London. Thirdy’s distributors in Taunton were the Doel family from Ilocos Region in the north of the Philippines. Perl Doel runs Perl Oriental Food Centre with the help of her son, Phillip Doel, and is currently preparing to open a new Filipino restaurant as a result of her success as a pop-up chef and event organiser.   

“We distributed food three or four times for Thirdy and it was overwhelming – so many families would come,” recounted Phillip Doel when I visited his mum’s shop with my own mother. “Even now our shop is very popular with the local Filipino community.” 

According to a report published by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Filipinos make up the largest demographic in the UK’s south-east Asian diaspora. Since the 1980s, the number of Filipinos in the UK has increased by a staggering 800%, with most families or individuals moving for work following a government recruitment campaign. Many Filipinos in Taunton and Somerset work in hospitals, environments which became busier during the height of the pandemic.

“The roads were very quiet during lockdown, so I’d drive 2-4 hours each way, depending on where I was going, then I’d do it again the next morning,” Thirdy recalled, sighing with his forehead in his palm. “One time I even drove to Cornwall – when I did that, I slept in the service station, in my car, then I went straight back to Jollibee once I got to London. It was so tiring, and I have back problems now, but I loved connecting with the community.” His memories of this positivity lights him up again. “That’s what gave me strength when I finally arrived at my destination – if you could see the faces of the kids, the photos that their parents sent me, they were so happy and wanted to order again!” 

“People are crazy, I spent so many months doing my deliveries – Jollibee even gave me a 10% discount on all the food so I made a lot of money during those months, I can’t believe it.” 

“But the money is not the only thing. I connected with other Filipinos and made people so happy. Some people were so depressed, oh my god – and the kids were so happy to have a bit of excitement during lockdown. Even when I wanted to compensate the distributors with £100, or at least some free food, they didn’t even want it. They just said, ‘I’m already so happy that you’re doing this for the community.’” 

Once we disconnect from our call, Thirdy goes to prepare for a flight to Switzerland to photograph a wedding – a familiar job far from his Jollibee delivery days, which ended once lockdown lifted in 2021. As of 2022, Jollibee has restaurants in ten UK cities, most of which opened as a result of Thirdy’s deliveries demonstrating the phenomenal demand of the UK Filipino community’s desire for a taste of home.