Bali-based bakery Starter Lab is opening its first overseas branch in Singapore.
Located at 721 Havelock Road, Singapore’s Starter Lab will be able to host up to 35 people around a communal table and bars, offering take-away coffee and bread.
Its menu is expected to feature seven types of sourdough loaves each day, and flavours such as Rosemary Lemon and Sea Salt Sourdough, Garlic Confit & Parmesan, as well as Salted Egg & Curry Leaf.
There will also be sandwiches and pastries on the menu, banana bread, scones and cookies.
Starter Lab has already launched pop-ups in Singapore, including at Camp Kilo Charcoal Club.
Founded by Emerson Manibo, who worked at NYC’s three Michelin-starred restaurant Per Se, Della Fattoria and Tartine Bakery, Starter Lab is famous for its American-style sourdough bread.
Taiwanese bakery Wu Pao Chun has opened first Singapore outlet, at Capitol Piazza.
Operated by a joint venture between BreadTalk Group and Wu Pao Chun, the bakery imports the same ingredients from its home base and sells around 60 products, including more than 10 regionally inspired new flavours, such as Coffee-C, Hainanese Chicken Fun, green curry bun Sawadee, tom-yum flavoured bun TomYummy, and kaya-filled soft French bun Kaya Kebaya.
The Singapore store’s baking staff had to undergo six months of professional training in Taiwan.
“Through my team’s close collaboration with BreadTalk Group’s research and development team, we created new flavours to pay tribute to Singapore’s vibrant hawker-food culture,” said Wu Pao Chun.
“Coupled with BreadTalk Group’s strengths in brand development and store expansion, I believe that we can complement each other perfectly, to create a winning formula to bring the authentic Wu Pao Chun Bakery experience to consumers in Singapore,” said George Quek, founder and chairman of BreadTalk.
The partnership opened two outlets in Shanghai last March.
Operated by a joint venture between BreadTalk Group and Wu Pao Chun, the bakery imports the same ingredients from its home base and sells around 60 products, including more than 10 regionally inspired new flavours, such as Coffee-C, Hainanese Chicken Fun, green curry bun Sawadee, tom-yum flavoured bun TomYummy, and kaya-filled soft French bun Kaya Kebaya.
Malaysian bakery Lavender is opening at Jewel Changi in Singapore this week.
Set to open on Thursday (April 11), the store will sell Lavender’s buns, French-style choux cream puffs, and house-made pandan kaya.
Located next to the 40m-high Rain Vortex waterfall, the outlet offers takeaway-only baked goods.
“We try to stay competitive with prices so all our customers can enjoy our products and taste the difference in quality,” a Lavender bakery representative said.
“Prices will definitely be different to Malaysia’s as overheads like rent, salaries and material costs will all be in Singapore dollars.”
Malaysian bakery Lavender has six outlets in Kuala Lumpur and five in Johor Bahru, including a multi-storey flagship at Taman Pelangi.
Minor Group has sold its half share in BreadTalk Thailand to the bakery’s Singapore-listed owner. According to the Straits Times, BreadTalk paid US$5.15 million for the stake, which Minor Group is expected to use to expand its other food and beverage brands in the kingdom, including The Coffee Club. The BreadTalk Thailand joint venture, called BTM Thailand, was set up in 2014.
Minor Group’s other brands in Southeast Asia include ThaiExpress, Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe, Swensens and the Pizza Restaurant Company.
French Bakery Brioche Doree on Saturday launched its first store in India in partnership with HR Bakers, promoted by Haldiram Managing Director (MD) Ashish Agarwal. The store is in Connaught Place. “Internationally acclaimed Parisian French Bakery Brioche Doree launched its first exclusive store in India with HR Bakers at Connaught Place, New Delhi,” the statement said.
According to a HR Baker statement, the Haldiram MD entered into a “master franchise agreement” with the French brand.
“Brioche Doree is known to be the second largest bakery/cafe chain in the world. The store of the brand in India has been curated in 100 percent vegetarian avatar,” it said.
Agarwal has invested about Rs 4-5 crore in the brand and said HR Bakers is open to exploring more synergistic tieups with other brands.
Agarwal said four more outlets in the National Capital Region and other markets are expected in the first year of operations.
The outlet has started serving delicacies French Bakery is known for.
Nestled in the upmarket suburb of Dogok, Seoul, sits the newly opened reinvention of Emart’s “Star Super”: “the SSG Food Market”, designed by Landini Associates. Emart is the leading business of the Shinsegae group, the largest retailer in South Korea, operating multiple brands including department stores, discount to premium supermarkets, and the mighty Emart hypermarkets.
The brief was to create a world class premium supermarket and food hall fusion, and Landini Associates were entrusted to redesign every detail of the new store experience. This included: the built environment, naming and identity, furniture and fixtures, signage and communications, ticketing, menus, POS, advertising style guides, packaging and uniforms. In fact every customer touchpoint.
The result is a modern market, a convenient and accessible food lover’s heaven, where locals can do a daily or weekly shop, or dine in with friends at one of the many in-store restaurants and cafes. Attracting a newer younger audience, whilst rewarding its existing, the SSG Food Market is a community epicentre to meet, eat and shop in, throughout the day.
The offer
The reinvention enriched and upscaled the existing food and beverage offer to include an extensive fresh department, vegie butcher serving house-made salads and juices, take home meals, Korean deli, bakery (run by hip San Francisco brand Tartine), fishmonger, butcher, Korean traditional street food, café, 200 seater restaurant, sushi restaurant, specialist cheesemaker, western charcuterie, wine and beer department, coffee roastery, dry goods, florist and homewares.
The result is a curated selection of quality products, and a onestop-shop supermarket and refined specialist items. In addition the market is a wonderful meeting place to dine with friends and family, further enriching the retail and community experience.
SSG Food Market Landini Associates Trevor Mein Fruit and Vegetables 45
The offer is made up of both SSG run departments, franchises (such as Starbucks, a premium brand in Korea), and third-party retailers. Ensuring that these were all presented as a tangible whole required the design team to be sensitive to multiple design briefs, whilst ensuring that the customer had a seamless experience.
Additionally, the site has a low ceiling which created some challenges for the reticulation of services, and multiple entrances, including a pre-trading public access to a subway station through the heart of the store; a gift to residents from Shinsegae.
Landini’s solution creates a space of intrigue, transparency and exploration by celebrating the food, the people who make it, and its preparation.
Specialist departments are visible across the restaurant’s open kitchen and include: Korean Traditional Street Food, Korean/ Chinese Noodles and a grill. All the production is exposed, and chefs work in glazed pavilions serviced by counters showcasing this theatre whilst you order. There are also take home meals in the Korean deli prepared daily in its kitchen, or fresh fish and meat cooked to order at the Grill, to take home, or eat in.
As always, and especially because the market is in a basement, the lighting plays a key role in Landini’s design. Chiaroscuro, the contrast between light and shade, creates areas of interest and calm, gently guiding customers on a journey of discovery throughout the store. Perimeter departments use pavement lights to create space, and give sense of the world above.
In the main market hall the interior is paired back, functional yet classic. This “bare bones beauty” of exposed steel beams and concrete bulkheads contrasts with fine marbles, glass and blackened steel, and is balanced by timber fixtures and details. This subtle, considered and classic material palette allows the food to be the hero, and merchandising plays a major role. Long-life departments such as wine and dry-goods have a warmer, more earthy and textural palette, utilising brick and added timber. In the carpark, red floors and walls add vibrancy to the market experience before customers even get out of their car.
The basement site is located below two high-end residential apartment buildings. Visitors can enter from the sunken courtyard on street level, or via the red carpark inside. SSG has created a residents pre opening pedestrian route through the store, a shortcut to the train station to save locals from the blistering cold in winter. Landini designed a set of messaging icons for this route, also.
The graphics
Landini Associates established a tone of voice for the brand to reflect their new food experience. This influenced all store communications including: naming and identity, signage and communications, ticketing, menus, advertising style guides, packaging and uniforms.
The entire site required an ownable, easy to understand signage and graphic messaging system to reflect the brand’s new established tone of voice. The Landini design team evolved the existing SSG logo mark, developing an adaptation on communications applications to collateral and signage.
The design is simple, contemporary yet classic; impacting not overwhelming. The palette is one of debossed concrete, timber, black and whites, and complimentary hits of the brand’s colour, red.
Boutique bakery franchise BreadTalk Malaysia has opened a new concept store in Kuala Lumpur’s Avenue K Shopping Mall. The new outlet is situated opposite the KLCC LRT station and is offering a promotional tote bag to early customers spending more than RM20. It opens from 8 am to 10 pm daily.
BreadTalk Malaysia is preparing to launch several more concept stores in other Kuala Lumpur locations, including KLIA2, before opening a flagship at Star Boulevard on Jalan Yap Kwan Seng next year.
The Singaporean brand has spread throughout Asia and the Middle East since opening in 2000, basing its products on premium ingredients such as Japanese-milled flour and New Zealand butter.
The Au Bon Pain bakery chain is to expand into Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam by the end of the year, to serve growing middle classes in the region.
The expansion was announced by Mudman Plc, the authorised Thai franchisee of the Au Bon Pain bakery chain, and international retail food brands including Baskin Robbins and Dunkin’ Donuts. The firm said the development is intended to capitalise on increasing consumer purchasing power and the strong economies in the Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) market.
Nadim Xavier Salhani, chief executive of Mudman, was quoted in the Bangkok Post as saying the company recently won rights from ABP Corporation, the owner of Au Bon Pain in the US, to open branches of the bakery in the CLMV market.
“The company is considering forming a joint venture with local partners or investing on its own in CLMV. The investment model will be finalised by year-end, while the expansion of Au Bon Pain bakery chain into the CLMV market reflects the market’s potential.” said Salhani. “Mudman expects to open the first Au Bon Pain branch in Cambodia or Vietnam by the end of this year or next.”
Express Food Group general manager Virak Tep told Khmer Times there is plenty of room for coffee and bakery chains to expand into the Cambodian market. He added that many international brands are entering into Cambodia, with the notable exception of McDonald’s. “I think Au Bon Pain is a good brand and with strong potential for a franchiser who wishes to bring it to Cambodia,” said Virak.
Salhani said purchasing power is increasing due to economic stability and growth in the CLMV, while international brands are popular among younger people.
Sales volumes in the food and beverage sector in Cambodia is rising at about 10 percent year-on-year, attracting many international franchises, according to Virak.
“Cambodian consumer trends show increasing preference for international brands from Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and the US. As long as the taste of the food or drink meets their expectations, they will go for those brands,” said Virak. He added his company will open another outlet of the chain restaurant Bar B Q Plaza in Cambodia by the end of this year.
Hem Samnang, area manager of BreadTalk Cambodia, a franchise brand from Singapore, agreed that coffee and bakery chains have room to grow in Cambodia. He said consumer awareness of international brands has been getting better over the past decade, as peoples’ incomes have gone up.
“Purchasing power in cafes and bakeries is rising day by day, both among youths, middle-aged people and families,” said Samnang said. “Cambodia still has more opportunities for international brands to enter the market as the country’s GDP is rising. I cannot say Au Bon Pain will be my competitor until I see their products.”
Over the next three years, Swire Pacific will increase the number of its bakery shops in Chongqing, Chengdu and Guiyang to 1,000 through its wholly owned Swire Foods subsidiary.
The conglomerate believes the benefits from stable, long-term growth from the food market outweigh the small scale of the business, compared with Swire’s aviation and property businesses.
Last year, Swire Foods took full ownership of Qinyuan, a leading bakery chain, for HK$1.4bn (US$200m). Selling Chinese and Western-style pastries, it added over 500 retail outlets in Southwest China to Swire’s portfolio. The deal also included a 65,000 square-metre factory producing bakery goods in Chongqing.
“Bakery is a very market fragmented market in China. We have not yet seen any player dominating the market [so] there a a big opportunity there,” said Max Lau, managing director of Swire Foods, told SCMP.
He said that the demand was due to rise because Chinese per-capita consumption was currently low, with an average spend on bakery goods of around just 140 yuan (US$20) per person per year.
This is half the amount spent in Singapore, while Hongkongers spend three times as much as the mainland, and Japanese spend close to seven times as much for their baked goods.
“Food still serves a basic need for everyone despite the economic slowdown in China,” Lau added.
“Moreover the retail business is being challenged by the rise of e-commerce in China these days, but food retail cannot be replaced by e-commerce just yet,” he said.
Personal fairness buyers are already circling well-known Singapore bakery enterprise Phoon Huat & Co.
The corporate, which sells its well-liked cupcakes from 11 retail shops across the metropolis state, is predicted to draw a sale worth within the neighborhood of S$250 million. Apart from its shops, the enterprise has a central bakery and sells baked merchandise, confectionery, drinks and components, on the wholesale market,
Based in 1947 by Hainan migrant Wong Tai Fuang, it’s now owned by the Wong household, which based on reviews in Bloomberg, has despatched prospectuses to potential bidders. First spherical bids are anticipated subsequent month.
The corporate’s belongings embrace property and the manufacturers Purple Man, Bakeway and Gold Tree.
