Nichol Ng 0:00 So I said, in order for us to preserve what we were going to do for the next 50 hundred years, and I'm putting so much effort and protect ourselves, we need to start afresh. It's not that I don't I respect my grandfather's heritage and what he has built, but you keep the legacy, but you start afresh. So that's what we did. kevin edwards 0:21 You are listening to the real leaders podcast where leaders keep it real. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. And that philosophy was crafted by Nichol Ng serial entrepreneur and co founder of Singapore's Food Bank, who shares today, how to start fresh while maintaining the legacy. So on today's episode, Nichol speaks out about her treatment as a young female executive, how to pivot digitally during a crisis, and why food can make all the difference. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the real, Nichol Ng Enjoy. Well, let's get this show on the road. Dan 5432, and one and welcome, everyone, to this episode of the real leaders podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. Joining us today is Nicole on the co founder of Singapore's Food Bank, as well as an entrepreneur of six food companies. They're in Singapore in and around the entire world. Please welcome Nichol Ng. Nichol, thanks for being with us today. Nichol Ng 1:35 Hi. Thank you for having me. kevin edwards 1:38 Of course, of course. So Nichol, you're pretty big into food. I see you've been around a lot of food almost your entire entrepreneurial life. Where did the taste for food come from? Nichol Ng 1:50 Um, that's a that's a very nice question to start this day off with at 7am right here right now. I think my affiliation with food really started very much early on. And I would say it's in my genes. My grandfather actually came from China to Singapore in 1934. And he actually started the food distribution business in order to survive. Actually, he came here after his first wife passed away. So he brought my younger Auntie with him. And then subsequently, he married my grandma had another nine children and then settled down in Singapore. So we've been around longer than Singapore has been. And what happened was he was selling all the food to all the street hawkers that was in the 50s and the 60s pre post World War Two times. And then my uncle's was in a business and they developed the food service model, where similarly to like Cisco foods, I guess after World War Two, everybody was like pivoting to new businesses. So that was exactly what we were doing along with the industrialization of Singapore and opening up the ports and things like that. A lot of tourists hospitality. So my uncle's started selling food to the hoteliers. And, and that was it. And so, we've been around for 80 odd years. But I have to say something. My late father, who passed on three years ago was the most entrepreneurial of the lot. He was the youngest of since today is about leaders, right? And I to share his story because to me, he's he is that true blue entrepreneur. So in the in 1977, basically, after dropping out of school, he started his own trading company. And then in the day where trade was much easier, right? Less sanctions and all that kind of crap. I, my dad basically built quite a nice Empire by the early 90s. So he was doing everything for moviemaking. We had a seafood trawling business in Cape Town, we were managing a duty free shop in the Maldives. And we had a swatch watch reverse wash wash distributor in the 80s. Yeah. And then we had 25 offices all around the world. And then came the 97 crisis, the Asian currency crisis for any one of them listening, you would remember 97 crisis, I was not even in university yet. Basically, our entire family lost 250 million US dollar value business to nothing. So we went bankrupt. I was there when the banks came to seize the house. So coming back to your to your question of why food is so important because that was the only business that my debt managed to ring fence and to keep, and it was my grandfather's business. And compared to everything else that he built that time, it was like $5 million. So it was a drop in the ocean. But it was enough for my uncles to just get on with their retirement, you know, for my dad to do something. And I was just entering university then that impacted me greatly. And alongside with that, from a very young age, I was also struggling with eating disorder. I think like For some of the leaders out there, I don't know whether you you resonate with this, but and you have this perfectionistic streak in you, right? And you expect a lot and being a female in Singapore and coming from a good school, it's a fine balance between perfection doing well in school, being well-rounded female, and attaining the grades that that you need to get on further in life. So that was me. And I struggled since 11. So food is very, very close to my heart. And of course, our family being in food distribution business we, we love, we love to eat. So it's been in our DNA. Yeah. kevin edwards 5:40 That's an incredible story. Thank you so much for sharing. And I know you're doing some work right now with with food disorders. So let's get into that a little bit later. Let's stay on this topic. Growing up in a family business household. What was that? Like? where it was your family traveling all the time? How did you deal with the pressure of that environment? And what were some of the cool things that you could share with our audience today? Nichol Ng 6:03 Yeah, you know, like all family businesses, like what you see on TV on Netflix right now. It's complicated. It's never easy. And it's even a little bit more difficult simply because I was very young female when I joined the business. And so because of the bankruptcy and everything else, it was there was no succession planning. They just got on with that small business, you know, as for what it is the hotels was to buy from us. And because my dad was the second youngest of nine children. I mean, it was never up to him right to bring in a successor, so to say, as well, but nobody else was really interested. My cousins were already working big banks, you know, they were the Citibank, Merrill Lynch and all that. And the food business wasn't the sexiest, right? I mean, imagine working in a warehouse all the time sweating it out, you know, Singapore, sweaty all the time, right? I mean, 265 days of humidity. But, uh, yeah, so I graduated in 2000, from us from the National University of Singapore, Arts and Social Sciences degree. And then I worked outside for two years, I was actually working in a media company. So and then came to which which I have to share this because so related to the pandemic right now, I joined the business during Saars. And that pandemic was, wasn't definitely wasn't something like that right now very contained within Asia. And most of the hoteliers and the restauranteurs, we could all see the end of the tunnel, so to say. So unlike now, where the tunnel seems like it's going forever. And but it was an interesting time. So I joined during a crisis 18 years ago, um, most of my older relatives actually gave me to one year to survive. My uncle actually told told me in my face that, hey, Nicole, you know, your a girl, most of the business owners are male, most of the chefs are male. And most of them are like double or triple my age, because they will almost be in their 60s or even their own businesses. I give you one year to survive, you see how long you can survive. So this exact code that he told me, and being the 23 year old, and that time I had long red hair, I wore three to four inch heels. I guess nobody really took me quite seriously. But I was the only salesperson I was developing the whole DRP system. I was when we implemented the back end technology, and and everything for the business. But that's when I when I joined the business, everything was handwritten in a little notebook for invoicing. I think the very, for all of you who are so young, you probably have not seen such saddle stitch, carbonated auto carbonated, you know? Never. And I'm even up till the 2000. Right. I mean, we were using so much like fax machines, which I think a lot of you have never heard of, you know, a dot matrix printers that goes to the doctor. That's, yeah, it's, it was strange. Well, but actually, if you think about it, it's not that long ago, it's 18 years. So I came in and and my dad say, Hey, you know, you want to learn about the business? And can you help me digitize the business? And that was it. That was 18 years ago, and there was no turning back. And, and actually, when I joined, there was like 30 odd employees and 99 points percent are male with the exception of some of the finance staff. And one of the customer service lady that was helping to generate orders. But I knew early on that we will not just a distributor or food trader, we are very much a food service player. So how it is like, like, for example, the US foods, right? And then you've got Cisco foods in the US as well. So they are huge food service players. We don't have that in Asia. So we were relying heavily on wholesalers and distributors. So I said, Hey, you know, there's so much more in Asia that we can actually do to professionalize the entire food service environment. So that got me really, really interested. And so after chugging along the business for a few years under the old company, the previous company was called on chain mom, marketing Private Limited. So Chai Hmong is one time out in Chinese and it means the ones are forever prospers. So it's not my grandfather's name is just that, I decided to do something very dramatic, which is why I call myself a entrepreneur, because I set up food services, which is the one of the companies that I run now. And I acquired the family business. So that was in 2007. So coming back to your question, how is it working a family when you are in debt, you know, fought through the bankruptcy and all that we are banks, we own personal debts, I was helping my dad to pay off a lot of loans. And that's, you know, and it goes to the 50, millions kind of numbers. So I said, in order for us to preserve what we were going to do for the next 50, hundred years, and I'm putting so much effort and protect ourselves, we need to start afresh. It's not that I don't respect my grandfather's heritage and what he has built, but you keep the legacy, but you start afresh. So that's what we did. So in 07, I just set up food services. And we actually bought over the family business, it was an arm's length transaction. So we pay my uncle's a retirement fund, you know, and then I managed from there. So in 07, we were like a start up, but in a 70 year old body. And and we revamped the branding, you know, we were using black black as a taboo thing. And Chinese, you know, I was running a food business in a black truck. And I was saying this, this girls crazy, like, you know, and definitely no banks, no, no bank support as well, because we started from ground zero. And it was the best decision that we've ever ever made. So and yeah, so very much we would like to start up. So from there, we started food services, we currently serve about close to 5000 FMB players with very small drops and deliveries. And then after that, we also open our retail distribution arm, we also moved into logistics. And now actually, we own our own buildings. So we have x properties. Yeah, we wanted to build a playground for anybody that is in the FMB space. So we run actually a 250,000 square feet warehouse is a co warehousing, co cooking, co office, co Innovation Hub. And so basically, it's for anybody to have fun and to develop your own brands as well. kevin edwards 12:43 Nichol, that's that it's it's it's an impressive isn't impressive transition. I mean, that was your role to you were tasked with digitizing an industry that has been around since the dawn of time. Now, what were some of the challenges you ran into during that transition? There's a lot of moving parts. maybe explain to our audience how the food industry kind of works, and what digital transformation you went through? Nichol Ng 13:09 Yeah, that's very interesting question. You know, back in the day, most of the chefs, they were placing the orders via the phone. There wasn't really a back end data system. And I am very sure it was the same all around the world. Everybody just relied on their own brain. So the procurement bias, even of the largest hotels, and the largest food groups, right. Basically, all the prices and the products were all in their minds. So in what happened during Saars time, and during that era, you know, just in between whether the it bubble bursts and technology developments. Everyone was forced to put that data into a server instead. And I still remember something quite interesting. Because most of the most of the customers or the people that we're actually training, are not able to are not able to sorry, give me a second, I think. Yeah. So basically, during that time, a lot of people did not even know what the mouse was, especially in my industry. So there was like, What is a mouse? So I had to train everybody for what's the CPU, and what's a mouse. And then most of them were Chinese educated. So I remember that not only was the hotels and the FMB people evolving and changing their business, even all the customer service, we had to train them. Yeah. And so we took actually two years I remember very clearly I met 11 vendors of different NIT systems, choosing one that was the most simple for someone who doesn't even know anything about ERP systems to use. And then after that, really gave them the full on training about what's a mouse, what's a monitor? What's the CPU? For those of you listening in, you must be Oh my god, like what era is she seeing in last night, right. But those were the people that I dabble with. And, you know, ironically, there are still this group of people in the world, even for very developed countries where they still rely on manual labor. And this is very true in the hospitality sector, I must say, maybe some of those that are in the 60s that are not highly educated, like not some of us that has been lucky enough to be you know, educated. There are a set of these people all around the world, you know, that they still doesn't know much about technology, they know, service, they probably know the press the cash register. But technology is something very new to them, and something that due to the pandemic, at least in Singapore, they have been forced to learn. So our government is giving out and dishing out free smartphones, to every elderly, even in the 80s. And they'll be installing a free Wi Fi for every family so that all the kids could could actually be homeschooled. And yeah, and and so because you know, our country is tiny. So they could do all this. And, and and I'm quite Yeah, I'm quite happy that we actually did that. But that's technology for you. kevin edwards 16:19 Well, maybe keep expanding on this in the food industry with technology, how has it been helpful in terms of it, you know, lowering your costs, as well as improving logistics, and getting a product from point A to point B. And also, we're talking about impact here. How have you been able to I mean, we produce enough food to feed people, we just don't distribute it properly. Right. So how have as this new technology, your change has been able to feed more people as well? Nichol Ng 16:52 Yeah, I think a lot of people are implementing technology, because you know, they feel that either it's, it's cool or nice to have or something like that. But for us, before we make any changes to the end, because it's a complicated ecosystem. So all let's say like, we surf the Marina Bay Sands, right, so they use their own procurement system, we serve like McDonald's, for example, they have their own procurement system, in order to integrate the entire universe of you know, both buyers and suppliers, for example, this itself has been something that's ongoing for the last 10 years, and nobody has really quite gotten to the bottom of it. And sometimes, because our clients expect us to do a lot more for their own system, my team has to do more. So they are asking us to do that people and receiving on their behalf. So they improve their productivity, but they're just basically passing the job to someone else to do. And I have been questioning a lot of them. I'll be clients as well. I'm saying is this fair? Because I'm a small medium enterprise. I have about 200 employees or less, you know, I'm sure there's, there's more that you can do. I'm hiring people to do your work. So I think in the in the quest for digitalization, this was something that we also encountered. But definitely the data that we have colita through it all. So now we have our own e commerce. So we deliver to homes as well. Yeah, so people have been shopping like 25 kilo gram bags of flour, that used to be sold to hotels, right to be baking at home, because that's what they do now, right when they're stuck at home. So, you know, we've been with e commerce going. And with all this data, basically, technology has enabled us to digest and to segment our customers very much clearer, very clear. So I mean, when it comes through the phone, it's not the same, because it doesn't leave the trace that you probably know. So now, you know how frequently this person orders, you know, and how do they order was the usual basket size, you know, it's something that makes it easily trackable. And the other thing that we also did was we actually forced our drivers to use fleet management. I mean, it's, it may it may sound like hey, you know, like fleet management, isn't that like a given? No, they they feel that they know the Singapore streets very well. So they could do 50 deliveries in the day. And they will do the route planning themselves. Because we do up to maybe 1500 invoice daily for a tiny island of Singapore. So they are able to complete it. And I've only got 30 trucks. So you I don't know how they do it, but they accomplish all the deliveries. But two years ago, we forced them to use a fleet management system. And actually, it's very good because it gives me clarity. And actually it helps me to track my assets as well. And I have to share the story because there was one driver that went missing and was saying where is this guy? Right? his truck was like parked somewhere in the basement. If I didn't have a fleet management system that has a GPS to see where he was, I wouldn't be able to know where he is and what I would have just lost the truck. But anyway, I'm coming back to Your question about impact. This leads me to the food bank obviously and I think a lot of people are quite shocked and surprised that Singapore needed food bank, we are seemingly this tiny little perfect island that doesn't seem to have poor there's no homelessness, no rubbish, no chewing gum and everything that comes with everything else. I think our poor is properly housed, we've got world class, government housing, the public housing here is fantastic. And, and just to share, you know, before we even get to the food part is that a lot of them is like one room and two flats that you can actually rent from the government, it's like $20 a month, it will come fully equipped with a living room, a room, a bedroom, and a kitchen. It's 25 bucks. And you can stay there yourself with your family. And other utilities are all already piped in and everything, there's proper, you know, rubbish clearance, and, and the whole lot and the best thing is these blocks are also served by social workers, so they get visited very regularly. So our elderly are also housed in these blocks and those that have elderly they actually have handrails, and alarm pulleys and things like that. So it before down and all that. So just to share a case of those of you who have already been in Singapore before and I say I don't see any poor because they are placed in very nice and proper housing, so at least the shelter has been taken care of. But Singapore has no minimum, which there's no poverty line, and we're a first world country. So I felt strongly that we needed to find a way to reduce our food waste, because Singapore imports 90% of everything that we consume, we only grow 10% So yes, we have about 187 Farms including some eight farms, vegetable farms and all that as well. If any of you are interested to set up farms you can come by to Singapore, highly subsidized land and we are going into high tech farming that we are we are basically attracting a lot of great investments for that and so but anyway we want to be self sustaining by 2030 so hopefully we can grow 30% of the food that we require by 2030 but while that being said We are a FREE port so everything that we import with the exception of cars, alcohol and cigarettes, everything is tax free. So when so as all the businessmen and the traders right, the food is the number one thing that they like to import so the import a lot so I'm not sure whether you know but Singapore is number one the most food secure country in the entire world. So we are ranked higher than Norway and the UK We are number one you could check I think even for this index, we are right up there. Yeah, so we are food secure in the sense of where we source our food and ample supplies of food. So all of us no problem plenty of food safe food as well we've got a very good governing body for that. But we throw away 30% of everything that we import. So being in the food business for so long. I saw the kind of food waste that goes around right it's it's really ridiculous. And then on the other hand, we've been receiving a lot more requests for donations. The people are writing in to say that hey, you know like Dr. So and so we are requiring 100 bundles of food 200 bundles of food and that has been escalating since I joined from 2002 so I said something must be going on you know like the income gaps are widening you know people cannot feed themselves easily. And I have to put a disclaimer here as well. In Singapore, you can still get a hot meal for three Singapore dollars. That's under three us. So it's like two plus us, you can get a full hot meal a hot piping bowl of noodles or a plate of chicken rice or something. So I think in other parts of the world first world countries very difficult, you probably get a half a doughnut and washed up coffee or something. But in Singapore, you can get a hot meal. And so therefore there's a disjoint but how come they're still hungry people so we decided to start the food bank in 2012 together with my brother, he who joined the food business as well in 2008 I the biggest joke is when we wanted to register the name the food bank Singapore we were rejected a couple of times by the Singapore authorities and this showed how little they knew about food banking. The officer actually told me hey you know Singapore no more banking license That's what she said. And and I think um yeah, sorry sorry. You can open another bank here No, no more space for another bank. I said I'm not being I'm not thinking so I gather you know from Feeding America and all the data and the and whatever that we are learning of overseas And we told the officer I say, Hey, this is the kind of bank that I want to start. We're NGO, we're a charity. But we stopped to that. And it was a small, humble beginning, it was just me and my brother wanting to give back. One thing to motivate our larger food companies that work alongside with us, like the last reason and Unilever's of the world, that, surprisingly, that's a lot internationally. But they don't need that in Asia. So I said something is wrong. I mean, usually Singapore is where the APAC headquarters is. So we wanted to change this because for example, in the US, Kellogg's is a great supporter, but they are not supporting anything in Asia, which I find it very, very unusual. So I said, why is that this mindset shift, right? company cultures, company culture. So But anyway, we bit the bullet. So this two young punks in from a small company taking on the giants. So I said, Okay, let's go out there and ask people donate your food, don't dump them. Singapore is very clean location, because the way we incinerate products is excellent. And it's top notch, and it's very affordable. So you don't see any rubbish around as well. So when we get to that, it was very difficult in the first year, because nobody really trusted us. They were like, you are in a food distribution business yourself. And you're asking me to donate food to you to give to the hungry. They were suspecting that we will be reselling the food. I was like, Okay, okay, so there's a lot of doubt here, there's number one. And secondly, liability till today remains a very big issue or the fear of liability. So a lot of people because Singapore is such a clean place, you know, and we have great systems. Everyone is fearful that after they donate the food after they consume it, what's going to happen if someone falls sick or die from food poisoning and things like that. So liability maintains, is still a very big issue for us right now. But I must say in the first year, we managed to collate two tons of food and redistributed it was just two of us, writing the deals and everything and then sending out to the people in need. That was in 2012, when I was expecting my first child. And as of last year 2019, we redistributed 802 tons. So from two to 802. So that's one impact for you. Okay, so we started with 60 charities, and now we have 360 charities, and we are reaching out to more than 250,000 people in Singapore through this network. And our team has also grown so now we have eight full time staff that helps us to coordinate everything else. But I must say importantly, is during the pandemic so sick, what kind of like a lockdown as well, what we call a circuit breaker, it was just about seven and a half weeks, where we were supposed to stay at home a bit more. And so this was causing a lot of problems, right for the families in need. So what we did was the food bank for the first time because some of the charities are closed, we picked up the pieces to go door to door to deliver meals, hot meals. And I think this is where we created a lot of impact, because instead of getting all the donors money, and then getting a soup kitchen to cook the meals, this was what we did. We took the millions of dollars that was donated, we supported restaurants, we bought their food. And so we helped our FMB clients to struggle through that period, took the food for a fixed cost us like four bucks every meal. And then we distributed these cooked meals to the hundreds, thousands of people that we were selling door to door. And it started out as a very small target that we have. So over the eight weeks, we were planning for 10,000 meals. But through the costs of April to end of August, we actually redistributed 1 million meals. Yeah, we were quite surprised that we managed to accomplish that with very little volunteers because now we save distancing. And all that on, the number of volunteers for most charities have actually been those as well. So we managed to get that going. And at our peak in June, every day, we were dishing out 15,000 meals door to door. Yeah, and but you know, I learned so much from this exercise as well. Because when we gave the meals door to door, people gave us feedback on yesterday's food. And that's when we also realized that hey, they also humans, right? But usually when we when we do food ration dispatch or meals dispatch, we don't really think of actually what do they enjoy eating. So some Yeah, and I think like all of us as well, we eat for a multitude of reasons. You know, it's not just for sustenance, we eat, you know, to be happy, you know, we eat for social gatherings, you know, some of us like sweets and was like sour, whatever it is, and so on. Therefore, we learned that we have to respect the people when we dish out the food as well. Um, and, and the funny thing was everyone, most of them, 99.9% of them are saying thank you for restaurant quality food, because the food that they've been getting from their soup kitchens were kind of like, substandard. It was like healthy, but yucky. And they were like, okay, thank you for. And so they was and they were so glad with the variety. And because we serve everyone from the elderly, from four different races, to young children, also different different backgrounds and races and different ages as well. And so they will also glad that was one day we were dishing out fish and chips. And you know, they were so happy to be receiving fish and chips. So we saw the Glee in the kids eyes as well. And that, for me, was the biggest impact. It's not about the statistics. It's not about how many you have fed, but you know, on a social aspect, a psychological aspect. What else have the food bank brought to them? So you know, usually I know globally now we're really trying to say how many more mouths we need to feed how many more tummies we have to fill. But the fact is that food is a very social thing. And it ties very closely to emotional well being. So in times in stressful times that we are right now. Um, it is even more important to be to be attached and get up to that component of feeding as well. Because not only through food, can you increase people's healthy status, right? how healthy they are, through nutritious eating or guiding them through nutritious eating, but importantly, to make them happy. So the food bank from time to time we dish out things like chocolate bars for O'Shea's, you know, yummy stuff. And now in Singapore actually, and around the world. For Chinese, we're celebrating the Autumn Festival, which is the moon cakes. So if any of you, you know, yeah, the sweet Piece of cake. And so once a year you look at the moon, and then you appreciate and eat all these different mooncakes. So in Asia in Singapore is a big thing. So all the elderly are waiting for a piece of this moon cake. It can cost the cake is about the size, and it can cost about 25 bucks for one piece. So for some of them who cannot afford it, that's like luxury. So every year, we make it a point to give out as many of these mooncakes as possible. kevin edwards 32:19 Nicole, that is incredible. Wow, what a pivot during a time like that. And I know you already mentioned the Asian currency crisis and what that did to your organization, how you had the pivot initially from dropping all the other lines to now just food to now the the pandemic happening. And right off the bat, you made the transition now had a little struggle in the beginning with people saying, oh, you're a for profit company. Why are you helping out? This doesn't make sense to me, but I can see it. And now now you're serving? What's the 1 million meals? 230,000 people but you credited it to the happiness the social gathering. You also said Singapore is one of the only countries that is above the poverty line. There's no food insecurity in this nation there is food security. How do we replicate a model like this? There's a lot of people thinking out there. I want to transition. I want to feed people. You're saying it's not about the numbers, you're saying it's about the happiness of social gathering. And that's what you've learned through being on the ground in the trenches, asking people what they want, figuring out what they need, how do you replicate a model like this somewhere else? Nichol Ng 33:24 Yeah, maybe just let me clarify. It's not that we do not have food insecurity. It's just that the government has never done a study into it. So what we did at the food bank 20 months ago, we paid a quarter million dollars to a university here to study this problem. So in fact, we just released Singapore's first food insecurity report. And the statistics are not looking fantastic. So this is pre COVID. Again, we're looking at 10.4% of people that faces food insecurity in Singapore. And the biggest issue will remain. Where are these people? Because they are hidden somewhere. So this is one, but during COVID times, I think the numbers is hovering close to about one in seven. So it's from one to 10 to about one in seven. But back to your question that I would still like to address. The food banks mission is very clear. And I told my team by 2025, all of you are supposed to get another job. Because our job at the food bank should be over in the sense that we are here to end food insecurity in all forms in Singapore by 2025. And I think most of the charities while most of us that out, you know with with a very clear goal and vision in mind, including the UN and the FAO and all the big root causes of the world. We were here to end something we were here to do something we were here to achieve some SDG goals. We were here to do some, but it's always a moving target. And the other thing that I realized about maybe some of the NGOs is that they end up in this rat race. But how it is like a business where you are just here year after year, whether is it with huge gala dinners or whatever I mean, no offense to anybody. But our view is that you're here to track your p&ls in order to survive longer. But if you're here to end something, you don't need to do that. So you just you just have to have enough budget to survive and to accomplish your mission. So that's, that is one big stop difference between us, and maybe some other NGOs, because we have a very clear goal in mind. So now we're putting virtual food banking in place. So I'm creating an app. So imagine, it's like a kind of matchmaking process between donors and the beneficiaries. So you start left to right and anytime, okay, I want two carton of apples from here and I live like 500 meters, you know, a way I will be happy volunteer to pick those stuff up. And then I can just go by pick it up, and then reduce wastage as well. So we are we are actually launching that virtual food banking app. So if we do it successfully, literally would mean that I do not need so many people to do that people will end the matchmaking anymore, which is what we're really doing now on an on a daily basis. But I think that we are just lucky that in Singapore, we logistically it's very easy for us to redistribute food because we're so small, and we are relatively efficient as a nation. But actually, for me right now, my biggest vision is to help our neighbors. So Singapore has no natural crisis, we are well protected no typhoon or earthquakes, no, no nothing. But we want to help people in Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, even like, you know, our close counterparts in other small developing countries in Asia, to set up their food banks. Well, so that they can also help the people that that lives in those countries, because I think Singapore is wealthy enough, both in expertise, as well as money, of course. And it's a great place to read distribute food, because we are transshipment hub. I mean, we have one of the most active hubs in the world. So it's very easy, just a few hundred dollars, we could get a container load of biscuits that say to the Philippines, to India, for example. And in case of, if you didn't know, Asia now has the largest quantity of food insecure people in the entire world. It meets Africa, it beats even beats like Mexico or Brazil or anything in Asia combined, we have the largest quantity of people that go hungry on a daily basis. So our focus really is to help our neighbors. And we're happy to say that being a member of the global food banking network, they have kind of selected Singapore as well to be the Asian headquarters for gfn. So what that means is that we then have an added responsibility to ensure that food banking thrives in this part of the world. kevin edwards 37:58 Yeah. So does your mission transcend Singapore then? And why is that important to have a long term vision versus something that's just close to you? Nichol Ng 38:11 Yeah, I, um, I feel that in order to be a leader to make a great impact, um, firstly, yes. So what we did in 2012, we started small. And through the trial and error we we started out, right, so one invoice, one container, one truck, whatever it is. But as we got the momentum, it was important to be even believed to believe ourselves even greater. And then you say that, hey, you know, if I can accomplish this successfully in Singapore, I can also make that impact all around the region, or anyone across the world if they needed any help. And the thing is that we're not saying that we are the wealthiest or were the largest or whatever. But maybe we have the biggest heart. And it's people that has the generosity in terms of sharing. I think the idea and your mission will actually be propelled even faster. Yeah. kevin edwards 39:05 Do you think there's a lack of generosity around the world today? And why is that also good for your business model as well to work in other communities to build those relationships and to show the people that, hey, look, we are generously giving away some of our surplus to communities who need it, and are in need? Nichol Ng 39:29 Yeah, I think, um, maybe because of the crisis that we are in right now, a lot of people have started to look inward, right? Like, what what's in it for me? You know, how can I protect myself? So everybody's safety mechanisms goes up, right? So unless you're in a position of privilege, like a lot of leaders are out there, so whether we are we are already running a business that still doing fine. You know, the question for us or for a lot of us is at the back of our minds, what else can we do? to impact other people, or to stop that, right. So I feel that generosity is important. But more importantly, I think empathy and compassion is also important. And I think, you know, all along, people are talking about CSR about having a valued and the systems and all that. My own feeling is that the premise many years ago, maybe 100 200 300 years ago, when we first started businesses, the concept of business and companies, right, it was actually like, if you if you just take like few hundred years ago, if you deep dive right, especially in China, for example, but in a village, every different company or business actually function as a function of society, that means one guy was a butcher, and someone saw vegetables or someone helped you to, you know, produce your swords, or whatever it is, but everyone was just a function of society. So now, if we take that philosophy back to the businesses that we are right now, so other than being giants in our own capacity, right, we are just functions of society. And we should always have a value system to serve. And I think if you have that fundamental mindset in everything that you do, you will manage the business quite differently from just anything that's just guarded it by dollars and cents. kevin edwards 41:20 Yeah. So Nikolas take an example of some, let's say a shared value, or how you're adding value to a supply chain. With was that that ice cream with the chest and ice cream? Near Cory Moe? Did little research on Cory modell look pretty interesting. And that's why I think it's really important. We explained our audience how complex the supply chain is, for a product like this. How do you add value to the value chain? In a process like this? Nichol Ng 41:53 Wow, you really did your homework. kevin edwards 41:56 I watched a little kids video is what I did. That little cartoon, you know what I'm talking about? Nichol Ng 42:01 Yes. You know that, again, that project was forced out of circumstance, because as part of engaging the family business, my uncles and my dad also invested in the chestnut plantation. So we actually own a quarter million trees in China. So we were growing Japanese grape chestnuts. So this was in the late, it was also in the 90s. So I don't know whether you're aware, but basically, chestnut as an ingredient is even more expensive than raspberries, blackberries, or anything combined. So in Japan is a very prized possession, and every nut is about this size. Right? And so therefore, yeah, it's huge. You know, it's, yeah, it's a spiky net, but it's really big. And it costs a lot of money to to be able for people to afford to buy this things. And you have a quarter million trees, that is mature and producing fruits, that's hundred percent for the Japanese economy. And it's a lot of us know, the Japanese economy has been flat. For many years, it's been more than 10 decades that hardly any growth, nobody's really spending. So therefore, the consumption of chestnuts also dropped off. So when I got into the business, then I was asking my uncle's. I said, hey, you've got so many nuts, what are you gonna do with it? So every year, once a year, the nets are harvested during autumn time. So this is the period where you know, the nuts gets harvested. And after harvesting, the reason why these Japanese actually brought the seedlings to China to grow the trees is because it's labor intensive, you actually can only scrape off the spiky husk with hands. And you can only have us the nuts, not using equipment, but the ladies actually have to bend down and pick the nuts. So after they pick, we have to get rid of the spiky husk. And then we have to get rid of this layer of hairy skin for anyone of us who have seen chestnuts, right, there's this little layer of skin that you need to remove. So they take this little blade, okay, and then they remove it. So during production time, you know, in our heydays, you could see like 2000 people squatting down by the water, and then they were just removing all this intensive and after that, we had to cook the nuts in a specialized syrup. It's an end the bricks is all tuned up to what the Japanese really wanted. And then we can it into like jerry cans of 17 kilograms. And this is where it becomes interesting as a commoditized product, they will squeeze you for every dime, the moment you ship it to Japan, they do the final last mile packing into small glass jars and then the premium is 10 times of what you see in the supermarkets. So basically after the production, so this this is this is what happened. They bought in bulk and then they they sold it and they repack it themselves. But then there came a point where the nuts were not selling because nobody was consuming chestnuts. So what happened was I said hey, let's develop and this was the very innocent me in my 20s. Well, I didn't really learn enough. I said, Hey, why don't we just take the nuts and produce premium ice cream? Because chestnuts were expensive and we wanted to fight with Haagen dazs, right, which was like really crazy. So what happened was, I took the nuts, I flew to Poland, met an ice cream manufacturer that did ice cream manufacturing for Nestle. And then we were developing the whole ice cream, you know, we took one year, and then we created the world's first highest vitamin C, highest calcium and highest dietary fiber ice cream, and we were selling at $16 a pint in Singapore. And obviously, because we didn't have the marketing money, we failed. But the whole intense thing from developing Karimo as a brand to understanding the nuts, that's the food business for you. And can you imagine we are just one of the many brands in the entire world that failed. I mean, she the brand itself, I love her to bits, I'm still keeping her alive. But how many more brands out there right that kind of like wasted food? Because you're you're trial and error. But but that's the reality of the food industry for you. kevin edwards 46:09 Yeah. Just understand that now that that. So just learning those lessons along the way, and then maybe applying those to, you know, failure is okay, just like you experienced with the food bank, you know, never, never stopping, keep keeping continuing to go. Now. I am very interested in this global supply chain. Like I said, there's a lot of moving parts. Nicole, you've talked about digitization already to you? What is the future of food look like? You're saying you're you're you're adding high tech equipment to your farms in China? What's the future of food look like? And how do you think it's going to feed more people? Nichol Ng 46:45 I think doing my children's or my children children's generation, a Michelin star dinner Would be like a pill in the box. kevin edwards 46:54 Really? Nichol Ng 46:58 Yeah, but um, I think at some point, if we don't appreciate the world enough, we might just end up like that. So you know, I can dine a Michelin star. And then that's today. But um, I think I genuinely think that, um, people would be more concerned about where their sources of food comes from. I think the traceability part is even more important. So when you when consumers like you, and I start questioning, where does my beef comes from? Right? Where does my vegetable comes from? Where does my fish comes from? Does it come from a sustainable source? How is it finished? You know, what are the waters that is living in? And you know, what's the vitamin content? You know, what's the nutritional content? When people start to ask more questions, the businesses have no choice but to do their business in a much better way. And so one of the other projects that I have in Singapore right now is to become the distributor for local farms here, where we wanted the chef's to change the concept of just buying cheap into buying good and buying local. So we are creating a QR code where the chef's can scan. And they know exactly when the vegetables are harvested for that day. So maybe it's harvested 23 hours ago, when today reaches their restaurant already. So less carbon footprint, you know, higher nutrition tastes better, you want a spicier veggie or you want a crunchy a veggie, you know, the farmers, just in your backyard, you actually can do something. So we are doing that project and Singapore also we have fish farms as well. So we are trying to find a way to take the tails of the fish so that when the farms, the restaurant hears the chef's can actually scan the tail, and then be able to see Oh, so this fish was caught when and when it was as fresh as it could be. And to start knowing where your food comes from is very important. I think that is going to be the biggest shift. Then the other thing is that I'm also in the alternative protein business. I know it's all the rage right now all the impossibles and the Beyonds and the new meats and whatever else. I personally think that at some point, the genuine vegans or vegetarians, for example, even like some elderly, like the Indians, they're vegetarians, but they don't eat anything that is fake, actually, they just consume vegetables. So there's two schools of thought I appreciate the fact that alternative protein is it's kinder to the environment at some point because you know, it takes less, you know, meat to produce whatever that we want. But until we find that suitable technology, which is a fine balance of real products in the product, because a lot of it now is still made up of mumbo jumbo that you and I cannot pronounce you know and and something that is safe enough for us to actually feed our next generation. So I would rather say that maybe we should consume less in always eat less question where the food comes from, and be kinder to each other and kinder to the earth. I think that's the way that the market will be moving towards industrialized foods and At some point we'll need to slow down. kevin edwards 50:02 Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, no, it's it's really it's really good to hear really positive to hear. Because agriculture has such a large impact on the environment. On on land use, I think it's like small herd farmers own like 30% of the global land here. around the world. Smaller farmers produce 70% of the world's food also, but are also consist of 70% of the world's poor. It's a fascinating statistic. Now, how does you mentioned climate a few times? How are you taking into account the climate? how this would I guess, for our audience, what is food impact on climate change itself? Nichol Ng 50:42 I think by what we're doing at the food bank is already helping to reduce waste in a lot of ways. So instead of dumping the food, we are giving the food a new lease of life. And because a lot of the food that we actually sell, which has very long shelf life, in fact, we often receive container loads of stuff like that perfect. And I've shared this a couple of times over the last few weeks, about four weeks ago, we were blessed with 5000 coconuts, the coconut, you see in like, you know, in a resort, and that's like, the, the exporter was like, Why are you giving us these nuts? He said, Yeah, I know, we're supposed to ship it to the Maldives. But there's no tourists now. And so there's no nuts that's required, we are going to donate them 5000 fresh raw coconuts, the kind that you were drink with a straw, and yeah, so and we managed to redistribute that as well. So in the food donation process, we've also learned so much of the weird types of food that actually enters our shore. I think the other part of food that a lot of people don't see is the packaging. Yeah, so actually, we use so much packaging for food. It's It's ridiculous. You know, from anything from plastics, your tins, you know, sometimes the cans are even more expensive than the beans inside the tins. Because now metal and resources are actually so expensive, right? It's not the cheapest supply. So but I think by helping to salvage the food, and ensuring the food has a new home, we are already trying to reduce the carbon footprint by giving these foods a new lease of life. So this is one. And the other thing that we have also done is to encourage large FMB players to donate their cooked food. I think this program is relatively new in the entire world. It's not many countries who have this program. So what we did was we actually salvaged cooked food from like buffet lines back of house. And then we add those foods and then we donate them out to soup kitchens where they can add them to their meals, or their bento boxes or whatsoever, and then it helps to reduce their food costs as well. We have we are also launching something quite interesting, or we have launched last year is we have rolled out a series of vending machines to distribute their machines. And I was just hiking vending machines, okay, so it's not the kind that you see in schools where you have to kick and shove the potato chip to drop down. It's not those, it's really high tech where there's a video screen, and you tap a cot and the door opens. And so inside there'll be a cluster of food inside. So because we realize that usually food is distributed during office hours, which means that sometimes when you're hungry at night, you really have no one to go to or nowhere to go to. So last year, on the 16th of October, we actually launched the first set of vending machines, and this year, we were quite lucky to be blessed with some money from UBS and be actually rolling out more than 35 machines all around the island. So not just dry food patients. But early next month, we are launching the cooked food version of the machines as well. And this time, we are reducing food waste even further because now a lot of the meals are that the soup kitchen dishes outright they just hang it at the door. You know it's not blast frozen or blast chill, which means that you have to consume it within the X amount of hours before it goes bad. So what we did was not only do we rescue the cook food from restaurants we do we we rescue all the perishable items as well like the vegetables and the fruits from the wholesale centers, we are putting it into a dish or a kitchen and then we will cook it, put it into like different meal sets, and then blast freezer and then distribute them via the vending machines after you blast freeze it means that it has a 12 month shelf life or more. And the best thing is that there will be variety of food so maybe I will have a spaghetti fried rice, you know and something so anybody who goes to the machine to get their meals also can choose what they want to eat on a daily basis. And importantly, the meal is always hot. Yeah, because there's a microwave attached on the side. You can heat it up any time of day. So if you're a security guard you and what 11pm You know, I think to something hot, you don't want to have some spaghetti or fried noodles or something, I just go to a machine like that. So and the best part is we're working with the National Heart Foundation to ensure that the food is also nutritionally balanced. So there's calorie count. There's fiber content, there's, you know, the what the vitamins and the nutrition is, as well listed on the packaging. So we are launching that in about 10 days time. Yeah, so we are moving to cooked food as well. And after we learn the setting up of this whole thing, we are hoping to motivate the rest of the food banks in the region, especially in places like Hong Kong, to actually install vending machines as well. Because I think, in the COVID world that we are in right now where everything needs to be contactless, this is a great way to distribute food aid. kevin edwards 55:43 Yeah. Nicole, it's it's it's fascinating. By the way, good luck with that. That's amazing. It seems like there's so many parts going on. But at the same time throughout the constant theme throughout all these ideas or solutions has been to me just simplicity. Everything has been simple. Oh, we went with the the thing was the UI that was as easy as for our people to use right now of all the others, we went with a way to make people happy, when to get meals, everything has been a simple decision for you to make things easier for other people. Now, what advice would you give to other business owners listening to this who may or may not be in the food industry, but are trying to solve these problems in innovative ways, using cross sector partnerships using partners? Anything? What advice do you have for business owners? Nichol Ng 56:35 I think the world life businesses as we know it right now, has become way more complicated than it should be. So I think as a business owner, your vision, your beliefs, and even the way that you're running, your business should be simplified. And in some ways, going back to basics, because at some point, we will need to press the restart button on a lot of things. And if you are going to be a successful business, we don't always have to fight with the large giants of the world, right where they have such an intricate system. But if you're able to bring one simple solution that helps a lot of people to solve their problems, you are successful in your own right. And I genuinely believe that that is the role of every business out there. So if all of us solve different things, collectively, as a community, we should do a lot more good than bad. kevin edwards 57:28 Ending food poverty, a simple message that transcends more than just your own community. That's a trait of leadership. Nicole, the last question I have for you today on the podcast is What is your definition of a real leader? Nichol Ng 57:46 I think a real leader is someone who can, who can cry, who can laugh, who can feel frustrated in front of the team. And yet when the situation demands of him or her will still be able to stand in front of the pack and take the shots before anybody else. I think like your your header for this podcast, right? I'm being real leaders and being a great leader is just about being real. I think a lot of times we have been asked to live up to fix, you know, this facade that we have to build up of ourselves. But sometimes by being real, being vulnerable, is a power in itself. And and and this is genuinely something that I believe in. If we are true to ourselves. It's less tiring, right? Yeah, you you already I'm someone that probably have some form of power to make a change in the environment, and the company that you're in, but just be real to yourselves and to everybody around you. kevin edwards 58:54 The cola was so fun meeting you. Thanks for doing this. You brought the energy today. I know it's 7:15am on a Saturday in Singapore. Thanks. So thanks for hanging on. For everyone listening on crowdcast and on LinkedIn live. I'm for Nichol and I'm Kevin Edwards asking you go out there. Stay true to yourselves people and always keep it real Thanks Nichol. And thank you good people for listening to this episode of the real leaders podcast with Nikolas. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And if you want to be a part of the action folks, you want to join live. Click the link in this description where you will be taken to Nicole's episode and added to our list to be notified of upcoming episodes with real leaders folks can't get this anywhere else promising. Again, folks, click the link in the bio where you will be added to our list to make sure that you will never ever miss a upcoming episode with a leader like yourself. And lastly, folks if you want to be a part of real leaders Email us at be at real daschle is calm so you can continue to spread the movement of leaders keepin it real. That's it for me. Thanks for being a real leader and stay tuned for the next episode. Transcribed by https://otter.ai