Creative Capital: Her farmers' market stall is now one of Singapore's coolest ice cream companies

Who doesn't love an water ice cream sandwich? Viii years agone, journalist Natasha Chiam, who graduated with a law degree and briefly worked in the legal sector, started making bootleg cookies and water ice cream, selling them at weekend markets.

Her delicious combinations chop-chop made her Ice Cream & Cookie Co (ICC) a local standout and congenital a devoted following. Today, ICC is i of the biggest contained players in frozen confections in Singapore.

This Oct, Natasha is launching ICC Kids, inspired by her experiences every bit a young mother. ICC Kids is a range of what Chiam describes as "wholesome baked goods and ice cream for children and new mothers".

WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL INSPIRATION FOR ICC?

Growing up, my parents would spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking with my blood brother and me. It was truly the eye of our home and many of my happiest babyhood memories are making and sharing food with my family. I think considering of this, food has always been something I share with those that I intendance well-nigh.

(Photo: Ice Cream & Cookie Co)

ICC started at home, with ice cream sandwiches that I made for my now-husband. He loved them and encouraged me to bring them to farmers' markets and popular-ups around Singapore. That is how the business concern began.

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WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES OF THOSE Early DAYS SELLING AT WEEKEND MARKETS BACK IN 2012?

Ane of the craziest things is that I did almost all of our deliveries myself for the first 2 years, rushing around Singapore in a mussed-up rental.

I used to push my trolley into commercial loading bays with all the tough truck drivers. They would always be tickled to come across me in that location – I'yard rather short and would be half-hidden behind my tower of ice cream boxes. Plus, female drivers are still a rarity. Driving would oftentimes take almost of the day. That meant I would but get to the actual work at dark. In retrospect, two years seems too long, but when you are a offset-upward with null external funding, saving every dollar counts.

That experience definitely made me tougher. Doing hands-on jobs similar those has allowed me to understand all aspects of my business and thus made me a improve manager. I am more able to understand challenges that employees at all levels of my company face because I've worked in every office from delivery to cleaning, product, marketing and management.

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It actually made me a improve person besides. I'd previously had the privilege of working in rather cushy jobs, and then it was eye-opening to learn how hard bluish collar workers, like delivery personnel and factory production staff, have to work so that consumers can savour dainty products and convenience. It puts things into perspective.

THE Visitor HAS CERTAINLY GROWN AND DIVERSIFIED OVER THE YEARS.

Growth is never like shooting fish in a barrel. If I had known how difficult it would be, I probably would never have quit my ix-to-five job and taken the plunge into business. Initially growth was very organic, or even sometimes serendipitous.

For example, one of our get-go customers happened to be a business, which is what pushed me toward manufacturing rather than running retail stores. This direction has allowed me to keep to grow the business with probably greater success than I could have achieved in Singapore's tough retail environment.

As the years go by, you learn more, and y'all have on more responsibility so growth is definitely planned. I have employees to back up, and so I am very careful most planning hereafter expansion and how to utilize the company's finances. Beingness conscientious and rather conservative also helped us make it through the contempo shutdowns due to the pandemic.

TELL US Almost YOUR Business concern TODAY. HOW HAS Information technology CHANGED AND EVOLVED?

We have grown from a single farmers' market stall to one of Singapore's leading ice foam manufacturers. When we offset started out, everything was truly artisanal and manus fabricated. At present, because nosotros supply to supermarkets and F&B bondage who in turn serve thousands of people each day, we have a duty to ensure consistent quality and food safety for all of our products.

Our products are IS22000 and HACCP certified, which means equally a business we have many measures in place to ensure total nutrient safety for all of our products. While our recipes have basically remained the same, we have had to edit certain things. For case, we now use a very pocket-size percentage of stabilisers to improve shelf stability and product quality – when we started out we were stabiliser-free.

I used to automatically think that stabilisers are bad for your wellness, but not all stabilisers are created equal. The ones we employ are high quality, as well as 100 percentage found-based and vegan certified.

We do more wholesale these days, as we all the same practise not have a retail shop – all of our retail is online via our website. Most wholesalers purchase our pints or large food service tubs. The ice foam sandwiches are as well still our signature product. We accept a loyal following who buy them at contained cafes and likewise directly from u.s.a..

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YOU Likewise SELL OUTSIDE OF SINGAPORE. CAN You TELL US ABOUT YOUR INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION?

We are sold in Brunei at a gourmet grocery chain chosen Supa Save. Nosotros are also in talks with distributors in Australia and the Middle Due east. So far, with overseas exports, we've been approached by the buyer and so in that manner that makes things easier – these companies already accept presence in their abode countries and are motivated themselves to add our products to their line-up.

Nosotros also accept an ice cream company in Jakarta called Cream Fiction. There, we offer home delivery, have a factory, and 4 scoop shops selling premium ice cream cups, cones, shakes and our water ice foam sandwiches. Nosotros also do catering and supply wholesale to F&B businesses and schools.

TELL United states of america ABOUT THE NEW LINE, ICC KIDS.

ICC Kids is a line of wholesome baked goods and ice cream for children and new mothers. Nosotros hope to give time-pressed parents the power to offering their kids salubrious, habitation-made treats instead of processed supermarket snacks. All items have low or no saccharide, and where sugar is used, it'southward organic and unrefined.

We've likewise packed a lot of the baked goods with fruit and vegetables like carrots, bananas and zucchini which nosotros get fresh from the wholesale marketplace. All the children'due south products, including the ice cream, are likewise egg-free and nut-costless, so kids with allergies can still savor them. That said, one of the lactation cookies contains macadamia nuts. Our manufactory does procedure nuts so if a child is allergic or sensitive to even to trace elements of basics, we recommend avoiding our products.

I actually fabricated all of the items in this range commencement for my own son, who also happens to accept an egg allergy, making sure that they are total of wholesome ingredients and are made just like a parent would make at home, from scratch.

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If yous expect at grocery stores, about pre-packed snacks – even the organic ones – are highly processed puffs or crackers, that usually contain vegetable oils, salt and sugar. On the bakery side, most don't differentiate between bakes for adults or children. Snack products are generally fabricated without much consideration for childhood wellness, and as such there are very limited options for many parents.

I did several rounds of testing and sent lots of samples to friends for their children to attempt. Children are totally honest with their feedback, and then information technology was piece of cake to iterate based on what they said! I think there was simply once I pushed information technology too far with a sugar-free zucchini muffin that even the near adventurous kid couldn't finish.

OF THE NEW ICC KIDS SNACKS, WHICH IS YOUR OWN PERSONAL FAVOURITE?

I love the Nibbles – they're similar mini cookies – in both the Cheese and Choc Raisin season. I remember a lot of parents really swallow their kids' snacks. I mean, who has time to make their own? I often find myself snacking on these footling bites. They're dandy to throw in your work pocketbook, or use as lunchbox fillers.

LOOKING BACK, WHAT WERE SOME OF THE Nearly CHALLENGING OBSTACLES Y'all NEVER ANTICIPATED Just HAD TO OVERCOME IN MAKING THE Business SUCCEED?

Most recently, the covid-19 situation. It's a once in a lifetime kind of experience that nobody could have predicted. Ice cream manufacturing was considered a not-essential business organization and we were asked to shut down entirely for a few weeks.

To compound that, our food service business cruel to almost zero for months because restaurants were severely affected. In order to overcome these challenges, we had to chop-chop pivot and supervene upon the lost revenue with online home delivery orders, also as to collect pre-orders during the flow we were shut down.

This involved investing heavily into digital marketing and too working out how to cope with the added logistical and authoritative load that small retail orders require. For case, a wholesale order might be South$500, simply the average retail order is around S$l. Instead of doing i delivery, our drivers have to do ten for the same dollar value. Our customer service staff accept to process ten times the corporeality of paperwork, over again for the same dollar value. Evidently nosotros couldn't hire ten times the number of staff to support, so we had to get artistic and effigy out how to make things work, with a mix of outsourcing, improving internal processes and retraining staff.

We had to quickly and continually modify our business concern model to make sure nosotros had strong acquirement to proceed to provide for our staff. Thankfully we were able to do and so successfully, and equally such nosotros were able to actually pass on some of the regime'southward grants to businesses directly to our staff in the grade of cash bonuses over the circuit breaker catamenia.

Ane example: nosotros gave all our strange workers the S$750 monthly levy rebate in addition to their bacon, and besides matched that amount for our Singaporean staff. I believe that if the company can afford to do and then, these rebates and concessions should be enjoyed by the employees because they are the ones who are often hit the hardest in difficult times and without them the company cannot survive. The pandemic actually helped united states become stronger together.

The pandemic as well forced us to use engineering science to streamline and improve aspects of our business that were previously transmission. For case, nosotros implemented more software automations as part of our guild receiving and processing procedures to aid our staff who had to deal with the sheer volume of many small home delivery orders instead of fewer large wholesale orders during this catamenia.

These are tools that we will continue to use beyond the pandemic and have definitely improved the quality of our customer service, fulfilment and also staff morale.

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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/creative-capital-natasha-chiam-ice-cream-cookie-co-247371

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