Karen's Kitchen started as a hobby home business for Karen Young, a self-confessed dessert enthusiast. Karen’s older sister, Joy, was an avid baker who baked different goodies every week all their childhood. Having an insatiably sweet tooth, Karen marinated herself in the kitchen gleefully waiting for what would come out of the oven. Inevitably, she learned how to bake and considered the kitchen a playground for fun and creative expression.

While living abroad, Karen took all kinds of cake decorating classes with Wilton teacher, Frances Salazar. Since then, she continued to pursue her passion for desserts experientially through dessert trips, research, lessons, books, and most of all, endless hours experimenting in her kitchen. It was there that she fine-tuned the recipes that would one day become her bestsellers.

By the mid-90’s, the hobby business grew by word of mouth. After attending the Ventures In Entrepreneurship course at the Asian Institute of Management, Karen moved her kitchen operations to Palm Village, Makati, and set up KEY Specialty Foods in June 2003. By November 2007, it was incorporated as KEY Specialty Foods, Inc.