The Kettle Gourmet has always been known for our interesting flavours of popcorn! Read on to find out more on how Zac, our founder and CEO, pushed the company to thrive in this highly volatile industry.

EnterpriseZone.cc is a project started in 2015, which aims to help entrepreneurs gain media traction for their innovative products and services. As of today, more than 2,000 entrepreneurs have been featured.  Their tales are often inspiring and there is plenty to be learnt from the answers they share. So if you are an aspiring entrepreneur and would like to learn more about the nuts and bolts of running a business, reading up on the stories of successful businesses on the platform could help!

 

Zac Chua, founder and CEO of The Kettle Gourmet, is one of the many entrepreneurs interviewed by the platform to share more about his company as well as learnings from starting up his very own business.

 

The Kettle Gourmet

A casual trip to the movies where he smelled the overbearing aroma of Nasi Lemak while enjoying his popcorn pushed Zac to start a business selling unique flavours of popcorn. As a food lover who enjoys Asian flavours himself, Zac aims to incorporate these popular flavours into popcorn. It has been 4 years into the business and today, The Kettle Gourmet moves an average of 1,200 bags of popcorn daily.

 

The Food and Beverage Industry

To Zac, this highly volatile industry is an exciting space to work in. The ever-changing demand and trends among consumers also pushes the emergence of fresh flavours and recipes. Moving forward, he is determined to integrate these new and vibrant flavours into popcorn.

 

Entrepreneurship Journey

Growing up, Zac has always been an incredibly motivated person and always aimed to achieve the best possible results in everything he does. In addition, his late father, who was a venture capitalist, taught him the importance of being humble. Coupling these character traits with being a food lover and a proud Singaporean, he always aims to ensure that The Kettle Gourmet offers the best to our customers.

 

Other than running the business itself, influence and negotiation skills have been extremely useful to Zac throughout his journey as the CEO of The Kettle Gourmet. Running a small team with an average age of 22 years old, he uses these two traits daily to make sure that the best is delivered to customers.

 

Another huge aspect of the company is our liaison and work with existing and potential partners, suppliers and clients. Weekly meetings are conducted to expand our reach across Singapore and further afield.

 

If given his time again, Zac mentioned that he would concentrate his time and efforts into building the foundation of the business properly. This includes sourcing the right suppliers, hiring like-minded and driven employees, investing more in branding and public relations for the company and lastly, taking guidance from mentors who have the necessary experience and knowledge to help him with his business.

 

Moving Forward During the Pandemic

In the early days of launch, The Kettle Gourmet was focused on a purely digital-first approach, with our popcorn available through our own website and partnering with online retailers across Singapore. Looking back on this approach now, Zac realised that it is one of the best decisions he has made. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic which hit other F&B companies incredibly hard, we have managed to come out even stronger and better, with sales growing 247% amidst the pandemic.

 

Personal Life

As a people person, Zac loves to unwind at the end of a long week with his colleagues, friends and/or family. At The Kettle Gourmet, we have renamed Friday to ‘People Day’ and his favourite thing to do, winding down into the weekend, is to play either a game of Mahjong or Dota 2.

 

When asked for a book recommendation, he suggested ‘The 5am Club’, written by Robin Sharma, which dictates how a strict morning routine can be a catalyst to maximum productivity, good health and even success. As a creature of habit, he bases his everyday routine off this book and have found that he is happier and more driven in both personal and professional life.

 

Source: Goodreads

 

Our Products

The Kettle Gourmet aims to make snacking fun for consumers. We use only the highest-quality ingredients including non-GMO natural corn and have no trans-fat in its baking process.

 

It features a range of local, unique flavours including Kaya Butter Toast, Chilli Crab, Chicken Floss and Nasi Lemak, as well as familiar favourites like Salted Caramel and Chocolate.

In addition to offering family and smaller sized packets of delicious popcorn, we curate gift boxes of various sizes (from $32 for six packs) for consumers to send to friends, families or clients.