PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2017

BEVERAGE INGREDIENTS PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 10/17 www.petpla.net 23 Tour Sponsors: From restaurant operator to juice producer by Alexander Büchler Asia Farm, Singapore/Plentong April 18, 2017 We met: Mr Wong Fot Keng, Founder Mr Wong Loke Hsien, Business Development Manager One small factory supplies Singapore with hot-filled sweet fruit juices. In response to the current health trend, Mr Wong reflects on his beginnings almost 20 years ago. The story starts unremarkably in the East of Singapore. Here, Mr Wong Fot Keng operated a Chinese restaurant and mixed his own freshly squeezed drinks in the kitchen, initially for his own restaurant and then also for others. From these beginnings, production grew to a 30m² site, which started operation on August 8, 1988 in Singapore. With several extensions, production continued until 2010. Parallel to this, in 2003 Mr Wong built a factory in Johor, Malaysia, near Singapore. Here he focused entirely on syrups for the food industry, also developing a juice portfolio for indi- vidual target groups. He was assisted by his son Mr Wong Loke Hsien. He has recently developed a drinks range with six Brix especially for children in schools in Singapore. There is also a juice and traditional drink range especially for Muslims during Rama- dan, which is only available for a few weeks. And alongside these is a range of other juices and energy drinks. Per year, Mr Wong develops one or two new product lines. The products are filled into large contain- ers, PET bottles or cups on three hot filling lines. UHT is also possible, as well as a certain proportion of pulp. Common to all is a high fruit con- tent and a high Brix proportion. This Mr Wong Loke Hsien, Business Devel- opment Manager in the warehouse in Singapore Every year, Mr Wong develops one to two new product lines. is also why Mr Wong looks to the future with some degree of reflection. “People are moving away from sweet juices; we must wait and see where we stand in the future.” But for now things are good for the Wong family, with 80% of production going across the border to Singapore. There, they have built up small direct sales with delivery to food services sector along- side the retail sales. The other 20% is exported and Asia Farm wishes to develop this sector. The company offers extra- ordinary flavour variations, such as matcha, mangosteen, longan and many more exotic fruits. Additional markets could arise here, without sig- nificant changes to the product range. Mr Wong has identified another strategy in synergising with a com- pany, that able to help them to another level of growth from a SME to a global player. “In this way, we can exceed the critical size that we would achieve through organised growth only after several years,” says Mr Wong. But actually he has the solution to his problem already in hand: 20 years ago at his roots, back at the start of the story. His idea is to produce fresh juices for the chiller shelves in Singapore. This should allow him to perfectly harness for his business the health trend of the times. I wish him every success. www.asiafarm.com.sg Hot filling for the bulk packs. The smaller PET bottles run over a carousel filler