KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 31 — The year has almost come to a close. We have eaten well this year, from nasi lemak and Hokkien mee to possibly more variations of croissants than we ever imagined we’d consume.
All thanks to the sweat and tears of so many hardworking (and likely stressed out) local food people who cook, bake and make endless cups of coffee for us.
So we thought we’d ask six of them what their thoughts were on the past year, beginning with their biggest takeaways for their business.
All agreed that putting customers first pays dividends.
Hidzad Bin Lahuree, who runs the Shah Alam bakery Cake Jalan Tiung with his wife Nur Shafinaz Binti Abdul Rahman, says, “Business strategy needs to be fluid and flexible to change according to customer needs and trends.”
In his opinion, expanding Cake Jalan Tiung’s menu to “cover the whole dining experience - from savoury food, desserts and drinks - helps to drive business in our area. Customers also are quickly influenced to visit a place recommended by review platforms.”
Creating and catering to a specific community has been the path forward for Rain Lee, Malaysia Barista Champion 2022 and owner of KITA Coffee, a “secret café” hidden inside Fahrenheit88 in Bukit Bintang.
She enthuses, “2024 has been fun! I observed that our community has shifted to not only looking for quality food and drinks, but also offerings that are innovative.”
Lee is no stranger to innovation with her varied menu of handmade Japanese-style roll cakes, which also come in seasonal flavours to continuously pique the palates of today’s customers.
“People are very open to something new,” she adds. “They are hunting for a very different culture and sensory experience. This pushes us further to work on not only providing better quality but more creative products too.”
Finding a way to stand out from the crowd is another huge, if perennial, takeaway. Ivan Chong, the founder of Cotta, a restaurant and producer of locally made ricotta, says, “The café space is getting even more competitive. Us staying unique by being a ricotta-centric place has been very beneficial.”
To this end, he encourages fellow F&B entrepreneurs to find their own blue ocean: “If you’re doing just the usual café stuff like coffee and pasties, you’ll be in a price war like how Zus Coffee is winning that segment.”
Looking for different market segments could be another approach. Desmond Ng of homegrown frozen smoothie popsicle purveyor POPMAN advises, “The Baby Boomer and Gen X demographics are groups we should not overlook.”
When he first launched POPMAN, he focused on the younger fitness crowds. He says, “It was a pleasant surprise seeing the Boomers and Gen X-ers become consistent repeat customers. They are becoming more conscious of what they eat as they see others fall ill due to years of poor eating habits.”
For Alex Yeo, owner and co-founder of Da Bao, which specialises in artisanal guàbāo or lotus leaf buns, 2024 was the year which reaffirmed his belief that the F&B business is uncertain.
He shares, “One month you can achieve your highest peak sales and the next, your lowest monthly sales for no specific reason. We have to always put our creative hats on to introduce seasonal and new items, on top of creating special events and promotions to keep things fresh and attract new and regular customers to frequent our outlet.”
The challenging economic period is also top of mind for Eddie Tan, who runs the PJ-based Cake Tella which is famous for alcohol-infused cakes.
“Business has not been doing well this year,” he notes. “So what we realised is we need to evolve according to time, otherwise we will be outdated.”
Given these remarkable changes in 2024, what new trends do they foresee in their particular fields next year?
Technology will continue to play a major role. Da Bao’s Alex Yeo foresees F&B businesses “will further embrace technology in their operations next year which may include trends such as a simple usage increase of QR code ordering, or a bigger budget allocated in social media marketing.”
On the flip side, Cotta’s Ivan Chong opines that the introduction of e-invoicing will result in “a lot of frustrated small restaurant/café owners. For corporate customers who park their ‘lunch meetings’ under expenses, imagine the extra time it takes to issue an e-invoice to them otherwise they too won’t be able to claim it as an expense.”
Not all is doom and gloom though. Health and wellness will continue to expand its reach in the local food sphere.
POPMAN’s Desmond Ng believes they will see “more companies hosting wellness events... and more clean eating/healthy F&B businesses come to market” while Cake Tella’s Eddie Tan notes that “older consumers are being more health conscious and cutting down on sugar consumption.”
Still, it can be tough to predict market trends or the whims of food social media.
Cake Jalan Tiung’s Hidzad says, “This year customers wanted the viral Dubai chocolate and tiramisu. We think that viennoiseries as well as French entremets will still have a strong foothold next year. Bold flavours like kimchi and gochujang from Korea and matcha from Japan may be staying a while longer.”
Ultimately, a good food entrepreneur ought to always pay attention to customer needs and changing dining/spending habits. This never changes.
As such, a more positive and growth-oriented perspective will be more useful than cynicism and naysaying. Take KITA Coffee’s Rain Lee’s ebullient attitude towards running an F&B business in today’s challenging climate, for instance.
She says, “I hope this group of community will grow even bigger in future. I strongly believe that more and more people will appreciate the efforts we and other F&B people put into producing better food and drinks - the possibilities are endless!”
