Lauren Tjoe: Where Are They Now?

Spoiler note: this post confirms that Lauren Tjoe won her season of The Great Canadian Baking Show.

Lauren Tjoe was 21 when she won season 6 of The Great Canadian Baking Show in November 2022, the youngest baker of her season and one of the youngest champions in the show's history. She was also, at the time, a full-time finance student at UBC's Sauder School of Business, which made her post-win path one of the more interesting to watch: bakery or boardroom? The answer, so far, is both.

The season 6 win

Tjoe, from Tsawwassen, British Columbia, took the title in the November 20, 2022 finale under judges Bruno Feldeisen and Kyla Kennaley and hosts Ann Pornel and Alan Shane Lewis. Her win generated an unusual amount of hometown coverage for a Canadian champion, largely because UBC embraced her: the Sauder school, the alumni magazine, and the student paper The Ubyssey all ran features on the business student who out-baked the country. She is the sixth champion in the full winners list.

Tjoey's, the micro bakery

Rather than choose between finance and flour, Tjoe prototyped. While finishing her degree, she launched Tjoey's (pronounced "chewy's"), a micro bakery that ran as a pop-up outside Great Dane Coffee on the UBC campus, with Tjoe curating the menu, doing all the baking, and handling the marketing herself. In interviews she described it as a deliberate experiment in what a bigger version might take: partner with a location, keep the operation lean, learn the economics from the inside. It is exactly what you would expect from a champion whose degree specialized in finance with a concentration in social impact and sustainability.

Where things stand now

On the corporate side, Tjoe said after her win that she planned to finish her degree and take a role at Canada Pension Plan Investments in Toronto. Her more recent public footprint is quiet, and whether Tjoey's grows into the brick-and-mortar bakery she has openly mused about is not publicly documented as of this writing. What is clear is that she treated the title as seed capital for skills rather than a shortcut, which makes her one of the show's most deliberate winners.

The takeaway for fans

Season 6 is worth watching for Tjoe's arc alone: the youngest baker in the tent, steadily out-executing the field. And if you are ever on the UBC campus and spot a Tjoey's pop-up, that is a national champion behind the folding table.