How Chye Seng Huat's founder Leon Foo is building an empire out of coffee
After starting a coffee wholesale business and opening several coffee shops in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Leon Foo’s latest venture is an Internet of Things-enabled (IoT) coffee machine that aims to change the experience for home brewers.
There is something about coffee. It’s the first thing we crave when we awake in the morning. It’s the solution for a midday slump. It’s the beverage we get when we’re out with friends. For many, coffee is something we simply can’t live without.
Leon Foo, 40, has built an entire career out of coffee. “Coffee is a bit funny, right? Some people say it’s a beverage, some people say it’s a social tool. Some people say it’s a drug,” mused Foo. “When I was looking at coffee, I wondered, why are people so crazy about it? But the more I discover, the more I fall in love with it.”
Today, Foo is known as one of the pioneers of Singapore’s third wave coffee scene. In 2009, he founded Papa Palheta, a coffee roasting and wholesale business that supplies to cafes and restaurants. The business eventually expanded to F&B when Foo opened Chye Seng Huat Hardware in 2012, a cafe and coffee shop that, a decade later, still retains its popularity. The cafe was bustling when CNA Luxury visited on a weekday afternoon for this interview.
Described as a coffee tech company, Morning operates an ecosystem that includes a tech and IoT-enabled coffee machine, a marketplace for specialty coffee capsules and an app with built-in recipes to allow users to brew cafe-grade coffee at home.
Brewing with Technology
What sets the Morning coffee machine apart from others on the market are its technological features that afford users full control over their brew. A built-in scale allows for accuracy and precision, while proportional-integral derivative (PID) temperature controls allow users to manipulate and optimise temperature according to their flavour preferences.
Since the company’s official launch in mid-2021, it claims to have sold thousands of its machines in almost 30 countries. Foo attributes the growth of the homebrewer market to the pandemic, when people began consuming a lot more coffee at home. “Now, your home is never complete until you have a coffee machine,” he said.
The fund will be utilised on two fronts. The company will develop and diversify its products offerings centred around the homebrewer but Foo kept mum on exact details. “We're not going to create just another product. We're going to create products that make a difference, that challenge the status quo and improve the experience for home drinkers,” he teased.
The company will also expand its presence globally. “By the end of the year, we will be in three markets, Singapore, UK and Australia.”
Green Practices
But Foo is cognisant about balancing company growth and sustainability. “In business, it’s all about timing,” he commented. “Some people can take the leap, but not everybody can afford to. Especially for SMEs and start-ups, we still need to be prudent.”
An Emotionally Rewarding Journey
With so much of his time now focused on Morning, Foo has handed over the management of Chye Seng Huat Hardware to the company’s next generation of leaders. In recent years, given Singapore’s thriving and competitive coffee scene, Chye Seng Huat has been leveraging on its location and space to host community events. “You can’t always be the new kid on the block, we know that. Hence, we have been trying to position Chye Seng Huat a bit different over the years,” said Foo.
So how does a coffee entrepreneur enjoy his cuppa? “I used to enjoy coffee with friends, but recently I like to have a cup of coffee alone,” Foo chuckled. “The best time to have coffee is in the morning by myself. I don’t look at my phone; I just collect my thoughts, drink the coffee and boom, I go. But because I have three kids, that moment is hard.”
It is the people he has met along the way that have left an impact. “I’ve been to farms in places like Costa Rica, Panama, Ethiopia. I’ve been to factories in China. I’ve visited famous coffee brands in Milan and Florence,” said Foo. “Coffee makes people feel good, and people feel good making coffee. It’s that sense of empowerment that people get from making [a good cup of coffee] that I think is the most rewarding.”
Source: CNA Luxury