INSPIRING SUCCESS STORY

Green Capsule Organics:

Creating a made-in-Singapore baby food brand

Key Highlights:

Overall revenue grew by over 15% after FIRC came on board
Monthly sales of its baby stew pouches jumped from 300 in 2021 to 3,600 in 2024
Business scope has expanded, with an upcoming range for the elderly

Enterprise profile

Green Capsule Organics Pte Ltd started in 2013 as an organic food wholesaler. Its online platform, Organic7days, sells organic or natural food and personal care products that include gluten-free noodles, manuka honey, and coconut oil soap. In 2016, the homegrown company branched out into baby food that it sourced from around the world.

In the process, it spotted a gap in the market for quality Asian baby food options and began developing its own range. The result is Deliciously Bib, a made-in-Singapore baby food brand that is now sold in major supermarkets and e-commerce platforms. Launched in 2021, it currently offers four flavours of ready-to-eat Asian Heritage Stews, including Hainanese beef stew, salmon and pumpkin with goji berries, and lotus root with chicken and huaishan (Chinese yam root). A range of superfood cookies for tots is up next.

_{Green Capsule Organics founder Alice Foo (right) and director Lam Soo Sing will launch a range of ready-to-eat stews for the elderly in June 2024.}

Problem statement

While Green Capsule Organics’ founder Alice Foo and director Lam Soo Sing were set on creating a nutritionist-approved baby food brand that catered to the Asian palate, they had no idea where or how to start. Neither of them was trained in nutrition or food science – Ms Foo used to run a corporate gifts business while Ms Lam’s background was in sales and marketing. “As a distributor, we just take in other people's brands and market them. But the production side is a completely different story,” said Ms Lam.

So in 2019, she and Ms Foo, her sister-in-law, sought help from the Food Innovation & Resource Centre (FIRC) to get their idea off the ground. The FIRC team – which included food scientists, food technologists, and a business development manager – guided them through the entire process, from advising them on business grant applications to formulating the products to linking them up with the right partners for commercial production.

Impact Achieved

The overall revenue of Organic7days has grown by over 15 per cent since FIRC was roped in. In particular, monthly sales of Deliciously Bib’s Asian Heritage Stews have soared – from less than 300 pouches when they were launched in 2021 to about 3,600 pouches now. They are a hit with busy young parents or those who seek convenient yet wholesome food options when travelling with babies.

Ms Foo is especially grateful to FIRC for the “knowledge transfer”, during which she and Ms Lam gained invaluable insights into the food production business. These go right down to the nitty-gritty such as how to source ingredients, laboratory test requirements, and how to state the product’s nutritional information.

“This knowledge enabled us to look for suitable partner kitchens with the right processes and checks in place to ensure our products meet or even exceed the mandatory safety requirements,” she said.

For example, every batch of Deliciously Bib’s food pouches goes through third-party microbiology tests as a guarantee of safety. “It is not mandatory to test every single batch but we wanted to do it since this is baby food,” Ms Lam explained.

The FIRC team also advised them to package the baby stews in sterile retort pouches to keep the contents fresh for longer. This ensures their preservative-free stews would remain shelf-stable and meet shelf-life requirements for export.

The success of Deliciously Bib has opened new doors. In June, the company will launch a ready-to-eat range for seniors called Recipe For Love starting with two products, a beef stew and a chicken potato stew.

“They are like dream-makers,” said Ms Lam of the FIRC team.

_{The Asian Heritage Stews are popular with young parents who value nutrition as well as convenience.}

_{The line of ready-to-eat baby stews was launched with the help of the Food Innovation & Resource Centre.}

“This knowledge enabled us to look for suitable partner kitchens with the right processes and checks in place to ensure our products meet or even exceed the mandatory safety requirements,” said Ms Foo on FIRC for their "knowledge transfer".

_{Ms Lam Soo Sing (left) and Ms Alice Foo are behind Deliciously Bib, a baby food brand that caters to the Asian palate.}

FIRC'S Perspective

As the Asian Heritage Stews were meant for babies, all the ingredients had to be wholesome and nutritious. This meant the team had to “navigate taste profiles without relying on common seasoning ingredients like soy sauce, salt, and sugar”, said Ms Wenie Chin, Manager of Product Innovation at FIRC. For example, the Hainanese beef stew was concocted by using a carefully calibrated blend of herbs, spices, and beef.

For the food pouches to achieve 12-month shelf life at room temperature, they had to be subjected to thermal treatments, which posed another hurdle. “We had to select ingredients resilient to flavour degradation under such processing conditions, which limited our choices,” she added.

But the team is heartened by the successful launch of Deliciously Bib, which Ms Chin said gives young parents more options. “It reaffirms the significance of our work and the positive impact it can have not only on Green Capsule Organics’ business but also on consumers’ lives.”

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