This mega centralised kitchen is set to transform food production.
A massive 300,000 sq ft food-manufacturing facility in Jurong is about to change the way local businesses produce food. The state-of-the-art facility was opened on Wednesday by Commonwealth Capital. Singapore’s government has been trying to push centralized kitchens as a means for F&B outlets to increase efficiency, but many brands are too small to adopt their own centralized kitchen. This new facility aims to integrate food logistics, production and services for various brands under one roof. But they have much bigger plans. Their true goal? To create a launchpad for local food production to venture overseas.
Commonwealth Capital (CCPL) is a Singapore-based investment company focused on F&B. They also happen to be one of Singapore’s most successful home-grown conglomerates, employing more than 1,200. They provide up to 24,000 meals to 151 outlets a day. Some of the F&B businesses that you may find familiar would be the Soup Spoon, Udders, Pastamania, Swissbake and Roxy Laksa.
What to expect domestically
Most of Singapore’s current food revenue comes from local food businesses. The provision of food stocks by CCPL includes pastries, meat, seafood and ready-to-eat meals like nasi lemak.
This massive facility expects to seamlessly incorporate technological advances into the F&B industry. The facility will welcome Singapore’s first pressure processing line, worth $2m, which will increase the shelf-life of food and increase nutrition quality. With that, the Soup Spoon will be able to retain their soup packets for about 2 weeks to 3 months—allowing them to export their products. There would be technology masterclass for providers to keep on with the advances and these technologies are based on pay-per-use basis.
Furthermore, it is a fully automated 13-storey warehouse with computerized management—meaning no human labor is needed retrieve the food products from the freezing storerooms
Many local F&B brands do not have enough outlets to enjoy economies of scale in terms of food production and find it hard to compete. The facility hopes to consolidate common ingredient requirements from different brands, such as flour and eggs, as well as production resources to collectively lower food costs.This would help to boost the profit-making and potential to compete in the market.
Real Goal: Overseas Expansion
One of the primary goals of this facility was to internationalise the local food industry.
The company aims to derive at least 50% of their revenue from exports in the upcoming 2 years, which would be groundbreaking considering the present market share. More than half of the production currently serves in-house brands. Hence, the company expects the emphasis to shift towards exporting products in the long run. Asia Pacific and the MidEast are regions that Commonwealth Capital are currently exploring.
Mr Andrew Kuan, director of Commonwealth Capital expressed that Singapore has a “unique proposition” given our credibility in food safety. This facility is basically “national service” for the country to help local brands go abroad.
Currently, some of the local food brands that made it abroad include Breadtalk, Putien and recently Bee Cheng Hiang.
