Yahoo Finance The Koufu Story: Growing From Coffee Shop To Food Brand Conglomerate
Once a simple coffee shop in Toa Payoh, Koufu has now grown into multiple food concepts located island-wide. It expanded beyond coffee shops to many notable food & beverage businesses under its portfolio, offering a variety of food concepts ranging from meatless restaurants (Elemen) to even managing a shopping mall (Punggol Plaza).
On 19 October 2022, Koufu officially opened its latest 7-story integrated facility to house the bulk of its business needs. The new headquarters is a 20,000 m2 building that is 5 times larger than its previous central kitchens and two corporate headquarters. With the support of multi-governmental agencies, the $55 million state-of-the-art building is more than just a headquarters for Koufu. Instead, it is a place where aspiring chefs and F&B businesses are nurtured and where food technology and innovation happen.
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Koufu Started As A Small Coffee Shop
Founded in 2002, Mr Pang Lim opened the first Koufu in Toa Payoh. Through hardship and hurdles, Koufu is now a household name, known for its food courts.
Being in the F&B scene since he was 16, Mr Pang Lim was not a newcomer when he opened Koufu. Starting his first coffee shop “Aik Hua” in 1990 and his first food court “Happy Times” in 1996. After selling the Aik Hua brand to Kopitiam in 2002, Mr Pang Lim repurchased 3 Kopitiam food courts in Toa Payoh, Woodlands, and Yishun. Amongst these 3, the Toa Payoh branch was the start of the very first Koufu.
Ever since its inception, Koufu has grown rapidly into a multi-brand conglomerate that owns multiple food halls, food concept stores and restaurants.
Koufu: A Multi-Brand Story
Koufu has touched Singaporean tastebuds by providing a variety of food concepts to cater to the multi-ethnic demographics in Singapore.
Brands such as “Fork & Spoon” cater to Singaporeans who adhere to a Halal diet, “Happy Hawkers” to those who want a nostalgic feeling of the old-school coffee shops, “Dough Culture” to capture the “on-the-go” eating experience at basements of shopping malls and “R&B Tea” which targeted the bubble tea trend.
The new HQ houses the Elemen Academy which provides junior chefs with an opportunity to learn the art of cooking, whilst being able to witness and experience it first-hand on running a kitchen together with others. The restaurant is open to the public and you can try out their exquisite meatless options.
With 12 brands under its name, Koufu has expanded into diverse areas in the F&B industry.
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How The New Building Achieves That Vision
With a staggering 180 locations island-wide and 12 different brand concepts, consolidating the operations, logistics and manufacturing of its products is a huge task to perform daily.
Their new 7-storey integrated facility headquarters (HQ) at Woodlands has solved those issues by consolidating the entire Koufu business operations under one roof.
The 7-storey HQ houses a multitude of equipment and specialist facilities which include new automation equipment, staff accommodations, manufacturing capabilities and cloud kitchens to support both Koufu’s internal operations as well as support Singapore’s growing Food & Beverage (F&B) industry, in line with the F&B Industry Transformation Map (ITM).
It also houses amenities that are open to the public like the Koufu canteen, which is essentially your typical Koufu food court with local favourites
The Koufu canteen is designed to evoke nostalgia with design elements such as the dragon-themed chairs that replicate the famous dragon playground in Toa Payoh. Which so happen is where Koufu opened its first outlet.
Integrated Facility Layout
Koufu has relocated their 4 production factories into their new HQ as well as dormitories for their workers, the entire office workforce, 20 units of food processing kitchens and 24 cloud kitchen units.
Koufu’s food processing facilities supply not just their internal brand concepts but also cater to external customers. Smaller F&B operators can tap these central kitchens’ processing capacity to ease some manual aspects of their food production.
Meanwhile, the cloud kitchens are leased to smaller F&B operators who can easily set up their businesses with the equipment needed at a low financial outlay. This defrays the cost to run an F&B business, especially in a digitised world of door-to-door delivery. Smaller F&B businesses can maximise the scalability provided by Koufu through professional equipment, infrastructure and knowledge all housed under one facility.
The New Facility Improves Koufus’ Drive Towards Increased Productivity And Its ESG
The new HQ has two other priorities that it is trying to achieve: increasing production output and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). To tackle these objectives, the new Koufu HQ has implemented automation upgrades as well as solar panel installation.
The new shift to improve productivity via automation is at the heart of the building. Adding an automated flour transferring system, conveyor system and spiral cooling towers has helped reduce production downtime and manpower needed. This has improved productivity by 140%.
Moving forward towards a more environmentally sustainable economy, the new HQ also has a smart waste compactor and renewable solar energy infrastructure installed. The chute compactor removes 80% of liquid from food waste and the solar panels generate about 300,000kWh of electricity per year.
With all those advancements tucked away in the belly of the building, the original mark of Koufu is displayed publicly with the Koufu canteen, as well as the Elemen restaurant. Perhaps you too can enjoy the new Koufu HQ with the rest of the Koufu team.
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