Profile: The Green-prenuer Hawker
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story & photos : Gena Ng
Living in high-rise, urban Singapore, the very idea of gardening, let alone farming, is remote.
But that didn’t stop the owner of the Wang Yuan Fish Soup stalls in Tampines to embrace the notion that the best gardens are the ones that feed you, and in his case, his patrons as well.
“Fish soup is a family business and my dad has been cooking for the past 17 years,” explains Derrick Ng whose humble demeanor masks an entrepreneur with a great passion and dedication towards green agriculture.
The 33-year-old began with a personal choice to eat naturally grown vegetables, before growing it into an opportunity to turn his hawker business into a sustainable one.
“What is so unique about my fish soup?”
Ng asked himself the question before the idea of using organic greens in his fish soup came to him.
That prompted some market research that revealed a growing trend of healthy eating among consumers.
“As the economy evolves…people [become] more affluent, they start to pay a lot of attention to healthcare, and their mindsets will change. I’m positioning myself towards this direction.”
When Ng started helping his father at the food stall, he sourced organic produce from local suppliers. But this resulted in costs that were too high for the business to succeed against its competitors.
“When you do the price comparison, you’re losing money. Every bowl you churn out is losing money ... this is not the way” concluded Ng who embarked on a second round of research.
Ng decided that the only way for him to sustain costs would be to control the resource, which would be the vegetables used in the soup.