Xu Ruotong’s Facebook boost! Yilan’s “watermelon toast” goes viral, selling 2,000 slices daily

▲The queue remains long even in heavy rain, all just to try the watermelon toast. (Photo /fewmeters Bakery Workshopprovided, the same below)

Reporter Li Ziyi / Comprehensive report

Li Wenfa, the owner of fewmeters Bakery Workshop in Yilan, who has a quirky and innovative personality, often comes up with various novel and creative baked goods. Recently, an extremely eye-catching product — “watermelon toast” — unexpectedly went viral on Facebook, selling 2,000 slices a day. The long queues of buyers even drew the attention of the police. Coupled with celebrity Xu Ruotong’s Facebook post:“What an amazing toast — you win!”it sparked a craze, making it one of the most popular new summer “refreshing” choices in Taiwan recently.

▲Xu Ruotong posted on Facebook to share the super eye-catching “watermelon toast” with fans. (Photo /Xu Ruotong Vivian HsuOfficial Fan Page)

▲The highly eye-catching watermelon toast.

Located in Jiaoxi Township, Yilan County, fewmeters Bakery Workshop was opened in 2011 by owner Li Wenfa, who has 30 years of bread-making experience. Admiring fewmeters greatly, he directly incorporated the name “fewmeters” into the shop name when opening the store. Even his product development is inspired by the installation art in the fewmeters Park landmark in Yilan. He has launched handmade items such as the fewmeters Starry Sky Toast Train Cake, which blend local Yilan characteristics. As forthe sudden popularity of the watermelon toast, it was completely accidental for Li Wenfa. Initially, he made the watermelon toast just to decorate the storefront and add a summery touch as summer approached. Unexpectedly, after posting it on Facebook, it garnered a lot of attention, which led him to start producing and selling it.

▲Two colors of watermelon toast, which are baked in separate batches of red and yellow, so which color you get depends purely on luck.

The watermelon toast uses the signature fresh milk toast as the base, with the inside dyed red using red bean and strawberry flavoring, and yellow using food coloring. The crust is colored with matcha and bamboo charcoal. Priced at NT$80 per slice, with a limit of one per person, sales begin at 11 a.m. each day. Including home delivery orders, around 2,000 slices are sold daily.

Li Wenfa also pays great attention to store decoration. He specially created a large fewmeters Starlight Train made from cookies and toast and placed it at the entrance. Later, it was changed to a more durable version made from cardboard boxes. Inside the store, there are also cute starlight train toast displays that match the store name “fewmeters,” giving it a fairytale-like feel.

The popularity of the watermelon toast has caused most of the other products in the store to be put on hold. Making watermelon toast now takes up nearly all the manpower each day. Li Wenfa has specifically asked veteran employees and friends to help out, increasing the staff from seven to over 20 people. Even so, they still can’t produce and sell all the store’s various items. Now, the store basically only sells its most popular items: watermelon toast, watermelon mousse, and giraffe cake.

%The most labor-intensive product in the store is the watermelon toast.