This post is dedicated to my friends who bake, cook, prepare cocktails and generally help to make life sweeter and more sublime for foodies and drinkers like myself.
Being a true-blue Singaporean, I love to have my carrot cake and eat it. Yes, we are a nation of foodies and many people live and swear by their hokkien mee, satays, roti pratas, and mee poks (a flat fettucine like egg noodle) here. There are also many food guides around (many with online counterparts) like the venerable Makansutra which has become a national institution for many here.
If you like to explore hawker centres and coffee shops as much as I do, you will appreciate the kind of marketing which they do. I always find it amusing how they use their accolades from Channel U’s Yummy King, the Green Book, Newspaper and magazine reviews, and even celebrity photographs to great effect.
Blogging seem to have taken the F&B world by storm. In fact, many of the most popular blogs around either blog about baking, food recipes, restaurant reviews, hawker hunts, clubbing spots, cooking, and just general savoury indulgences. I have also come across a blogging cafe and even a blogging bouncer!
I wish that more leading restaurateurs and food entrepreneurs will blog though. It will be interesting to read about the inspiration behind the classic creation of chefs in Singapore, or the toils and troubles that a hawker experiences. Or perhaps how one experimented with a recipe over and over again until he or she achieved culinary perfection. Maybe stories about serving a very important customer (like a celebrity or politician), the day the cooking oil ran out, and how dating couples behave behind the bar. Or even a simple trip to the market early in the morning to hunt for the freshest ingredients (ala those perfection-obsessed chefs in Japan Hour).
Certainly, the F&B business isn’t an easy one. I have heard and read about so many failures in this business (including those amongst personal friends) that I wonder why people bother sometimes. The hours are long, investments are heavy, and competition can kill. Perhaps blogging could help to draw customers? I for one love to read about my food and how it is prepared.
Any ideas out there?
F&B business is not easy. You only can “manage” that much. The chef has the say. When the chef leaves, that’s it. Unless the boss is the chef or vice versa. Also good location means high rental. Integration is the key, even in F&B. For example, http://www.dabao.sg (no need to rent any space, no inventory, no need chef)-just need to know where to get what, and how to get, then deliver the service to cosumers. I wonder how successful they are. :p
Everyone knows operating a F&B business is tough. I have been to many F&B outlets once and after a few months, they closed down. Chris used to say I brought bad luck to them by eating there. haha….
I know a few chefs who write articles regularly for the newspapers but not sure if they would like to start a blog. They have very interesting stories to tell but their lives are very hectic.
tigerfish doesn’t operate a restaurant but she cooks like a real chef. Or is she?
The use of blogging tool in the food industry seems to be creeping up the media agenda at the moment. I certainly agreed that blogging helps in boosting the sales in a certain extent. –
1. By getting potential customers’ awareness of ur existence
2.Widen the marketing target as the internet is getting more and more acessible.
3. Helps portrait urself as an expert in teh industry.
4. Bring ur customer nearer to ur business and hence catch their attention and concern. Make them feel they can grow together with ur business.
5. Attracts more business partner and investor.
As a consumer myself, i do enjoy reading food related blog too and always love to try out those yummilicious food posted online. =)
tigerfish,
Your point is absolutely right. My friends in the F&B business always struggle when their chefs decided to leave for better pay elsewhere. Another problem they encounter is pilfering, which can be rife at times when your staff invite all their friends over for a free makan and drinking session!
hmmm…nice post there man..blogging has evolved quite a bit hasn’t it?
I did remember some time back where programmers use blogs to share codes..and all they need to do is just copy and paste..fwah..so easy..keke!!
jason, yep it has changed quite a bit. I think the biggest revolution is how it can make web publishing so easy for the rest of us tech-idiots. I am beginning to play around with HTML codes myself too and experimenting with changes in my template.
Hi Walter,
thanks for visiting my blog! Another long post is in the works, but so lazy to write…
anyway, I don’t have many new ideas, but I suppose for an F&B establishment to stay in business, they should never cave in to mass-producing, other than the obvious factors like location, originality, service and quality. Have seen too many formerly-good places turn mediocre then crappy just because they try too hard to please everyone and end up cooking junk. Don’t want to give names, though! 🙂
Food makes the world go round.When I was a kid everyone wanted to grow up to be a firemen, police officers, secretaries…..nowadays more and more kids want to be chefs.