Latest news with #F&B
CNA
6 hours ago
- Business
- CNA
‘We were gutsy, a little foolish': Co-founder Lyn Lee on how Awfully Chocolate became a cult cake brand early in the game
Local F&B entrepreneurs would unanimously agree that two decades is a lifetime to remain in business. Soaring labour and ingredient costs aside, surely the eye-watering rents would be enough to drive an honest proprietor to rack and ruin — not to mention the occasional black swan event such as financial crises and a full-blown pandemic. Despite rolling with those punches to establish Awfully Chocolate as an enduring, 27-year-old local brand, its co-founder Lyn Lee is adamant about not downplaying the towering odds stacked against her and her counterparts. She has even declined interviews on the hot-button issue of rising rents. 'I don't want to be used to say, 'See, Awfully Chocolate can survive because they did this and that. You didn't pivot.' I will not be drawn into that,' she said. A tendency to couch her words in careful disclaimers hints at Lee's former career in law. But on one point, she's unequivocal: 'In any one of those cases of a business shutting down reported in the news, it was 100 per cent because of the rent,' she added emphatically. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Awfully Chocolate Singapore (@awfullychocolatesg) Yet, amid growing calls for government intervention to rein in rent hikes and safeguard local businesses, Lee stops short of echoing those demands and leans instead toward forging stronger support networks among fellow tenants. 'If we all started looking at how we could band together and support one another, that should be an improvement. Otherwise, the market may correct itself.' While the laws of capitalism may stand in the way of rent control, she does however, argue that a vibrant F&B sector doesn't develop by happenstance. 'Everyone says, Singapore is so boring and everything is the same. But if you don't have different markers for how to have different types of businesses, it will be very dull.' CHASING THE PERFECT CHOCOLATE CAKE Fitting into a ubiquitous mould was far from Lee and her co-founders' minds when they launched Awfully Chocolate in 1998, in the upheaval of the Asian Financial Crisis. There, in a quiet nook of pre-gentrified Katong, the friends opened a flagship store offering just one item: A simple chocolate cake they'd spent months refining. Focusing single-mindedly on just one product — with no fallback plan and zero market research to hitch their wagon to — was nothing short of audacious. Family and friends dismissed the venture as a non-starter and gave it two months to survive. 'To them, we were making very weird decisions,' she recalled. ''How can you open in Katong, where it's all about laksa and Peranakan food? Who's going to go there to buy a whole cake?'' But Lee and her co-founders, then in their 20s, weren't swayed. In her words, they were 'contrarian' — more inclined to go against the grain than follow it. 'My partners were 'Katong-ites'. They said we had to be where the best food is, and that if you could make it in Katong, you could make it anywhere else,' recounted Lee. While none of them possessed F&B experience, the huddle of dreamers had long flirted with the idea of embarking on 'some cool adventure.' Lee, a former lawyer who worked at leading law firm Allen & Gledhill, had left the profession to work in a media company. She convinced her young and restless crew to join her in her pursuit for the 'perfect chocolate cake.' It took months of folding batter into submission, and plying loved ones with chocolate cake, before they sank funds into leasing their Katong store. Its stark, pared down aesthetic had less to do with design intent than with the reality of a skint budget. They could scarcely afford a refrigerator, let alone a display counter. 'Our friend who helped to design the logo asked, 'Why do you need a display counter when you're only selling one cake? It would look so silly to display 12 dark brown circles',' she recalled. Defying convention, she said, helped them to stand out in a space saturated with Ultraman cakes dripping in chromatic excess. 'I believe the early articles called us the cake shop that doesn't look like a cake shop. It was quite cutting-edge.' Their first big break came from a feature in lifestyle magazine 8 Days, after being discovered by playwright Michael Chiang, who was formerly the editorial director of Mediacorp Publishing. 'When he chose to feature this funky little cake shop, it drew attention, because back then they wrote about music and entertainment, not food,' shared Lee. The publicity pole-vaulted the business into the public consciousness, and the phone didn't stop ringing after that. 'We could only bake around 50 cakes a day, so we would sell out and go home,' she recalled. Awfully Chocolate became a cult chocolate cake brand early in the game — thanks, in no small part, to a quality some would have written off as foolhardiness. 'We were gutsy, a little foolish, but we believed there might be enough room for us to do trial and error,' said Lee. She now tries to pass on some of that scrappy, self-starting spirit to her team, whom she encourages to produce their publicity videos in-house. 'I'm always pushing the younger generation to not worry that they may not have a formal qualification in something that the job scope requires,' shared the 52-year-old. A RECIPE FOR RESILIENCE Growing a hole-in-the-wall setup into an international brand — with franchises once spanning Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong — has, however necessitated no small measure of agility. Rather than framing her entrepreneurial journey as a dichotomy of missteps and masterstrokes, Lee views it as a series of moves, 'one step at a time.' When Awfully Chocolate first ventured into urban malls, the co-founders realised that shoppers weren't inclined to lug an entire cake from store to store. In response, they began opening cafes that offered cake by the slice, along with a medley of bite-sized indulgences including chocolate truffles and ice cream. Over time, they uncovered new revenue streams — from corporate gifting to, more recently, a product line curated for hotels. That's not to say they haven't made big swings, either. At the end of 2024, they launched their own roastery in China, where they've been experimenting with innovations such as tea brewed from caffeine-free cacao husks. The latter is served at The Awfully Chocolate Experience Cafe that opened in Wisma Atria that same year. 'We've had exchanges with leading agricultural scientists from Wilmar International, and learnt how to use some of their healthy plant-based innovations,' shared Lee. Years of investing heavily in research and development for their B2B arm have paid off. 'We have this whole in-house setup where corporates can give us a vague idea of what they want and our R&D, design and marketing teams will just bring it to life,' she said. These capabilities, she noted, have to an extent girded them against the vagaries of an increasingly volatile rental market. Other external pressures brought to bear upon the business include the COVID-19 pandemic that hit like a sledgehammer to their China operations. 'From over 60 stores, we were whittled down to just a handful in two cities,' she revealed, adding that conditions in the mainland remain challenging amid a sluggish economy. While the pandemic took its toll on business in Singapore, Lee says they pulled through by biting the bullet and forgoing their salaries, for the most part, during those trying months. 'One of my business partners who did a lot of work restructuring companies during the Asian Financial Crisis shared that those that made it had teams that came together and believed that they would come out stronger if they made the sacrifices,' she related. 'When everyone starts thinking about themselves, that's when you see the whole thing fall apart.' Working with her friends for close to three decades, she insists, has been a blast, with no major conflict to grouse of. 'I'm very much a frontline person — I always think like a customer. Some of my partners, on the other hand, aren't that way,' she laughed. 'But that's the wonderful diversity and synergy between different personalities.' While the close-knit group may wax facetious about the 'cliche' of building a business on Lee's love of chocolate, it's proven to be a richly layered endeavour. For one, delving into the nuances of the Singaporean palate has deepened her appreciation for her country itself. Locals, she observes, tend to favour dark chocolate that's neither overly rich nor cloying, with a warm, toasty finish. 'I almost liken this to how amazing Singapore's food is. Like how there must be wok hei (smokiness),' enthused Lee. She volunteered that she eats chocolate cake for breakfast — a habit her kids 'find weird.' 'I love that we have our own Singaporean identity when it comes to chocolate preference, and I hope that we can share that more with the world.'
Independent Singapore
2 days ago
- Business
- Independent Singapore
Singapore restaurateurs expand regionally amid soaring rents, labour shortages, and shrinking consumer spending in SG
JOHOR BAHRU: Singapore restaurateurs are turning to other parts of the region amid soaring rents, labour shortages, and shrinking consumer spending in the city-state, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). Food and beverage (F&B) businesses across Singapore have been shutting down at the fastest pace in almost 20 years. Last year, more than 3,000 F&B outlets shut down — the highest since 2005, when 3,352 outlets closed. In the first half of this year alone, 1,404 closures were recorded, only slightly below the 1,611 seen during the same period last year. In fact, government data showed that an average of 307 establishments have closed due to high costs and fewer diners this year, which included Eggslut, Manhattan Fish Market, and Burger & Lobster, as well as Chinese hotpot chain Haidilao. SCMP also noted the closure of Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao's 20-year-old outlet at Holland Village and the Michelin-starred Poise on Teck Lim Road. See also The story of how You Tiao Man's business flourished amid COVID-19 One restaurateur from Singapore, 56-year-old Govinda Rajan, opened his first Malaysian outlet of Mr Biryani and is already eyeing expansion in Johor Bahru. Meanwhile, his Singapore outlets in Little India and Siglap are struggling. 'Don't talk about profit margins anymore,' he said. 'Surviving is the priority now.' Keith Koh, a 35-year-old gastropub owner who opened a Muslim-friendly branch of Lad & Dad in Kuala Lumpur in May, said that lower operating costs there gave him breathing space and helped remind him that he's an entrepreneur. 'In Singapore, sometimes I forget why I'm doing this because I get lost chasing margins due to the high overheads,' he said. 'I lost track of the passion, the fire, the adrenaline I was burning out every other year, but going to Malaysia gave me that sense again,' he added. While F&B business owners mentioned that some ingredients are more expensive in Malaysia, they told SCMP's This Week in Asia that significantly lower rents and labour costs make it easier to maintain profit margins. They also noted Singapore's tight restrictions on hiring foreign workers and the low local interest in service jobs, which have made operations more difficult. Temasek Polytechnic's Diploma in Culinary and Catering Management course manager Geoffrey Tai said more local F&B owners have been eyeing regional expansion over the past 12 to 18 months amid high costs in the city-state. 'Contrast this with Malaysia, where rental, utilities, and manpower are significantly cheaper, and you start to understand the appeal,' he said, adding that while pricing power is lower there, operating costs are too, which makes the numbers 'work out more attractively'. In addition, a YouGov survey of over 4,035 Singaporeans showed that 26% plan to cut back on dining out, while 20% said they will spend less on food delivery. The food scene is under even more pressure as F&B outlet openings continue to surge — over 3,790 new eateries opened last year, followed by another 1,964 in the first half of this year. Singaporean chef-owner Bjorn Shen said many newcomers in Singapore's F&B scene wrongly believe they can make a 30% profit when, in reality, most are lucky to get 5% to 7%. He added that eight in 10 are losing money, with most F&B businesses in Singapore closing within two years. 'For 5% to 7% profits, you should be thanking your lucky stars and kissing the feet of whoever you worship,' he said. 'We have more restaurants here than we have people to feed,' he added. Meanwhile, Mr Shen, who recently opened NEP! in Penang and Baba G's in Bali, said profit margins in those cities can reach up to 20% and 30%, with entry-level staff in Indonesia costing about a fifth of Singapore's rates. /TISG Read also: Knight Frank: F&B surge in S'pore could hurt profitability, waste resources, and destabilise the retail sector
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Is Singapore's food scene at a crossroads? Malaysia beckons as restaurateurs prize survival
In Johor Bahru, just across the border from Singapore , restaurateur Govinda Rajan is eyeing expansion. It has been only three months since he opened his first Malaysian outlet of Mr Biryani, but the veteran chef is already planning his next move. Back home, however, he paints a far bleaker picture, saying that his Singapore restaurants in Little India and Siglap are struggling to stay afloat amid soaring rents, labour shortages and shrinking consumer spending. Govinda had launched Mr Biryani in 2018, offering Singaporeans a Hyderabadi version of the beloved rice dish. 'Don't talk about profit margins any more, surviving is the priority now,' Govinda, 56, told This Week in Asia. He is not alone. Across Singapore, food and beverage (F&B) businesses are closing at the fastest rate in nearly two decades. A total of 3,047 establishments shut their doors in 2024, the highest figure since 2005's 3,352 closures. The casualties to date range from beloved neighbourhood fixtures to big-name international chains – among them, Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao's 20-year-old Holland Village branch, the Michelin-starred Poise on Teck Lim Road, and foreign franchises such as Eggslut, Manhattan Fish Market and Burger & Lobster.
Independent Singapore
3 days ago
- Business
- Independent Singapore
Knight Frank: F&B surge in S'pore could hurt profitability, waste resources, and destabilise the retail sector
Depositphotos/sasimoto SINGAPORE: The surge of food and beverage (F&B) outlets in the city-state could not only hurt profitability and waste resources but also destabilise the retail sector without intervention, Knight Frank warned in its Q1 2025 Retail Report, as reported by Singapore Business Review . In April, Knight Frank already warned that the F&B business boom could do more harm than good as businesses are having a harder time staying profitable with more players competing for the city-state's 'limited pie.' Last year, more than 3,000 F&B outlets shut down , with monthly closures crossing 200 in October —above the pandemic average of 170 closures per month. At the same time, 3,793 new outlets opened, the second-highest figure in over 30 years, Singapore Business Review reported. Across the island, prime retail rents edged up just 0.3% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to S$27.90 per square foot per month in Q1 2025. Orchard Road outperformed with a 2.7% increase, but rents in the City Fringe slipped 0.3%. Knight Frank expects overall retail rents to rise by only 1% to 3% this year if no major disruptions occur. Business sentiment took a hit after US President Donald Trump announced a new wave of tariffs, affecting trade and market confidence globally. Still, F&B brands keep entering the market, with little sign of slowing down. In 2023, Singapore recorded 22,747 licensed food establishments—the highest on record, raising real concerns of oversupply amid limited regulation. /TISG Read also: June 2025 NODX jumps 13% YoY: Singapore beats forecasts as PCs, ICs, and gold shipments climb Featured image by Depositphotos (for illustration purposes only) () => { const trigger = if ('IntersectionObserver' in window && trigger) { const observer = new IntersectionObserver((entries, observer) => { => { if ( { lazyLoader(); // You should define lazyLoader() elsewhere or inline here // Run once } }); }, { rootMargin: '800px', threshold: 0.1 }); } else { // Fallback setTimeout(lazyLoader, 3000); } });
CNA
5 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Commentary: As more restaurants shut, is it time to rethink Singapore's F&B rules?
SINGAPORE: We've all seen the headlines: Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao closes after 20 years in Holland Village. Wala Wala Cafe Bar ends its 32-year run. Ang Yong Seh, the 65-year-old co-owner of Xin Ming Road Bak Kut The dies after working 18-hour days to pay off COVID-19 pandemic debts. And in their shadow, a growing number of home-based food and beverage (F&B) businesses are flourishing. As at June 2025, more than 150 F&B businesses in Singapore are operating out of residential properties, from Housing and Development Board flats to landed homes. From cafes like Knead Kopi in Bukit Timah to informal eateries like Little Social in Tanjong Pagar, these home-based players are popping up all over the island. Meanwhile, each week seems to bring news of yet another licensed F&B establishment closing. Licensed F&B owners have voiced concerns of an uneven playing field, saying they shoulder high overheads, strict regulatory checks and multiple agency approvals, while many home-based operators face far fewer compliance obligations. They question whether current regulations are keeping up with the realities of Singapore's F&B landscape. THE WEIGHT OF COMPLIANCE Before the pandemic, Ang Yong Seh's stall was struggling to meet monthly costs including S$9,000 in rent and S$4,000 in employee salaries. During COVID-19, daily revenue sometimes dropped to just S$100 a day. Over three years, this accumulated into more than S$100,000 in debt, even though he worked seven days a week, taking only four days off during Chinese New Year. Kanada-Ya's parent company cited similar pressures when placing the ramen chain's Singapore subsidiaries under creditors' voluntary liquidation – 'challenging conditions of Singapore's F&B sector, including elevated operating costs and soft consumer spending patterns'. Despite signature menu items like black garlic ramen that initially drew crowds, the chain couldn't survive. As a former restaurant owner, I can tell you that licensed F&B outlets shoulder an enormous burden well before serving their first customer. Rent in prime locations can exceed S$20,000 monthly. You don't have to run a fancy fine-dining joint for fit-out costs to reach six figures. There are various regulatory requirements that businesses must meet, across agencies such as the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Singapore Food Agency (SFA), National Environment Agency (NEA), Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and Building and Construction Authority (BCA). On top of that, daily costs are compounded by things like utilities, safety inspections, staff training and wages, Central Provident Fund contributions, pest control, professional fees, regulatory delays, and so on. THE HOME ADVANTAGE Meanwhile, home-based food businesses operate in a seemingly parallel universe of minimal oversight. Consider Lucky House Cantonese Private Kitchen, run by Sam Wong from an East Coast terraced house. Charging S$130 a person and booked solid until March 2026, this operation serves up to 30 diners a night, five nights a week. That′s 150 paying customers weekly, generating just over S$1 million annually from a residential property that is neither licensed nor zoned for dine-in operations. Any other business earning more than S$1 million annually would be required to register for Goods and Services Tax (GST), report taxes quarterly and comply with a range of regulatory obligations. Operating as a home-based business exempts F&B players like Lucky House from SFA licensing, regular inspections and the full weight of commercial regulations. The regulatory blind spots extend further. In June, Raymond Leong, who runs Peranakan home-dining business Ampang Kitchen from a semi-detached house, admitted he was unaware that domestic helpers are not allowed to assist with home business activities. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of employment law that licensed establishments would never be permitted to ignore. PLAYING FIELD MUST BE LEVELLED Singapore has gained a reputation for being a country of regulations. We've also gained international admiration as a food haven blending multicultural identity and innovation. So when we lose local F&B players, we lose pieces of the Singaporean story as well as the physical spaces where our shared culture lives and breathes. The current regulatory framework may be well-intentioned, but we must be careful that it doesn't undermine F&B players' ability to survive, let alone thrive. I know this strain intimately. When I ran the now-defunct Jekyll & Hyde in Tanjong Pagar, we encountered unexpected zoning restrictions that resulted in a temporary shutdown, despite repeated efforts to comply with requirements. My experience is but one example of how navigating the ins and outs of compliance can be a significant source of financial strain. For smaller F&B operators especially, each round of clarification or modification can translate into lost revenue, disrupted staffing and uncertainty over long-term viability. It may be worth considering if the industry needs a tiered regulatory framework that scales requirements according to business scope and impact. Similar to how GST registration is tied to each business's revenue thresholds, perhaps it would be more useful to require small-scale F&B operations to comply with lighter or fewer regulations. Businesses serving significant numbers of customers or generating substantial revenue could face tiered requirements for licensing, safety compliance and zoning adherence – standards according to scale. It would also be a great help to see more government intervention in the problem of rising rents. For instance, could the authorities collaborate with landlords on rent stabilisation mechanisms, or co-invest in public space activation to boost foot traffic? The goal of this would not be to prop up underperforming businesses, but rather to preserve a vibrant F&B ecosystem where players with proven track records don't collapse under avoidable constraints. It seems only fair to expect that regulations don't inadvertently favour one group over another. More importantly, they shouldn't place an undue burden on businesses that are already making every effort to comply with both the spirit and letter of the law.
