GROW YOUR BUSINESS WITH THE RIGHT SUPPLIER
Picking the right suppliers is crucial to the success of any F&B company, especially in the pandemic era where global supply chain disruptions and rising ingredient costs pose huge challenges. Here’s how Chef’s Pantry helped GS Asia overcome these issues by providing quality ingredients at affordable prices.

Pandemic Challenges For Singapore F&B:

Recurring lockdowns, zero footfalls, and changing dining restrictions have led many F&B companies to pivot to online deliveries.

Manpower shortages, energy price increase and ingredient price increase have added more cost pressures “specifically in the range of 30% and more collectively” says the Restaurant Association of Singapore.1 In fact, prices of some essential items have risen by as much as 20% over the past three to six months2.

As a result, F&B sales registered a year-on-year decline of 26% in 20203 and at least 3,440 F&B businesses shut down during the pandemic from December 2019 to June 2021, according to Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong4.
Humble Dumpling Beginnings

Jason Wang, director of Yongle, was an engineer who decided to venture into F&B. He started Yongle in 2016 (now known as GS Asia). It all started as a food stall selling frozen dumplings. The initial focus was ecommerce business mainly targeted Chinese nationals through WeChat, then production was increased to supply mala hotpot stalls and restaurants.
While Chinese nationals were the main target audience in the beginning, Wang hopes to win over a larger Singaporean market. They’ve introduced thinner skin dumplings like wanton, worked with Singapore influencer home cooks and started selling their products on Shopee, Lazada and NTUC FairPrice marketplace. With the pandemic these past 2 years, they had to be very responsive in order keep pace with changes in consumer habits and become more focused on their online business. With rising cost, they were also open to looking at ways to reduce their ingredient cost without compromise in quality. They’ve successfully done that and has emerged stronger in 2022.
Why GS Asia Chose Chef’s Pantry?

Source: 1,2,4 Channel News Asia, 3. Singapore Department of Statistics.