KUALA LUMPUR: Foodlab, a social enterprise that provides kitchen space with basic commercial equipment, seeks to work with foodpreneurs to leverage each other's strengths in creating a presence for their brands in both offline and online spaces.
Co-founder Zahaby Zainuddin said key proposition is the proactive role the company plays in helping its foodpreneurs connect to business clients.
This includes supporting them in marketing, packaging and essential business assistance in accounting, sales tracking and business registration.
"Foodlab targets new and micro food entrepreneurs aged 18 to 35 years. However, the company is also open to welcoming food entrepreneurs over 35 years old with the requirement that they employ youths as kitchen helpers.
"These include those who may have some experience running a food and beverage (F&B) business like home-cooked meal business operators, food stall operators or hawkers, as well as those who may have had some exposure to culinary businesses, food service and food science," Zahaby told The New Straits Times.
When asked on what does Foodlab have to offer to the foodpreneurs, Zahaby the company offers competitive and affordable membership packages for its foodpreneurs.
Types of passes available include day pass, flexi pass, retail kitchen pass that is dedicated to foodpreneurs who wish to supply to Kedai Mesra, and virtual pass that are dedicated tor foodpreneurs who wish to leverage food delivery services to sell their products.
To date, 25 foodpreneurs have benefitted from these since the company began its operations in September.
He said Foodlab's marketing arm aims to enable access to the market for the foodpreneurs' products to reach clients and consumers, not only in the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment, but also business-to-business (B2B).
In addition to advertising and marketing, Foodlab assists foodpreneurs in tracking their sales and accounting.
When asked on the business venture, Zahaby said upon joining Social Enterprise Education Lab or
SEEd.Lab, the mission for the team was clear -- to combat youth unemployment and address the pain points of the community.
"When the pandemic hit, it strengthened our purpose, which became the drive for the team behind Foodlab.
"It was imperative that the business set-up is able to create more employment and uplift the local economy which has been in a downward spiral due to the pandemic.
"The team believed that something needed to be done to help, especially to help those whose sources of income were severely impacted, and it needed to be done fast," he said.
When asked on challenges, Zahaby said one of the challenges for the team in the initial stage was the inability to get closer to the ground due to the Movement Control Order (MCO) implementation.
He said the team was not able to conduct extensive user research.
"Although we managed to conduct online engagement, it was important for the team to really get down to the ground to gain better insights and understanding of the communities, including their day-to-day journey and understanding the challenges in running their F&B businesses.
"The team was playing catch-up with the schedule at the start, but managed to keep to the planned launch date in September 2020.
"After the launch of Foodlab, another round of Controlled MCO (CMCO) was implemented.
"The search for foodpreneurs hit a roadblock. The team was not able to engage foodpreneurs as many were hesitant to scale their production during this period," Zahaby said.
When asked on how does being a part of SEEd.Lab support the growth of Foodlab, Zahaby said through the programme, Foodlab was able to leverage the strengths of Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to support and enable the company to do more through the resources and strong network in their respective areas.
This is the premise on which the collaboration between Foodlab and Petronas Dagangan Bhd (PDB) was established.
He said the collaboration with PDB provided more exposure to Foodlab, enabling its foodpreneurs to have their specialty dishes sold at Kedai Mesra, while contributing to the livelihood of its foodpreneurs.
"Right now, our foodpreneurs' products are available at selected Petronas stations including Petronas Mutiara Damansara, Sri Hartamas, Kota Damansara, and NKVE Subang. We are also available at Foodbike, Menara CIMB.
He said Foodlab has plans to expand in the Klang Valley and across the country to connect more foodpreneurs to businesses.