From mum to son: The story of Singapore’s chocolate cake institution Lana Cakes

As with any legacy enterprise, it's a problem to preserve issues the best way they're, whereas additionally pushing ahead with innovation. In Lana Cakes’ case, the difficulty lies with sustaining the identical flavour profile – the style that prospects grew up with – regardless of modifications in know-how and the availability chain.

For Kwan, having a style legacy is vital, however he feels that issues don't have to stay established order. For instance, whereas the traditional chocolate fudge cake has remained largely unchanged, buyer calls for for a fair chocolatier model persuaded him to provide you with a Fudge Lovers Only (FLO) selection, with two-thirds of the cake’s weight made up of pure fudge. He lovingly dubs it “a chocolate cake on steroids”.

Lana Cakes is charmingly anachronistic: The enterprise nonetheless operates from the identical single location, and it didn't have an web footprint till the tip of 2018. Compare this with the rash of home-based baking companies which have sprung up because the onset of the pandemic, many of them taking immediately to Instagram to entice prospects.

“We look at Instagram, and some of these [social media] tools, as ways of promoting what we have as opposed to selling. We're still a very traditional cake shop. And we believe that word of mouth still works,” mentioned Kwan.

What of franchise plans, then?

“I believe contemplating the challenges of the pandemic, it’s not an space that I'm specializing in. I do assume that in the long run, I would love to think about taking Lana Cakes worldwide. But for the time being I'm targeted on ensuring that our enterprise is Singapore is powerful and nearly as good as it's.

“We built the business based on quality and consistency. It's never about mass production;  it’s never about making as much as you can. I look at this more as a marathon, whereby we want to maintain this legacy, we want to go the distance. It’s not a sprint, where you’re just expanding. If we focus just on expanding, can we really continue the quality and the consistency the way customers expect of us?” he requested rhetorically.

No doubt, helming a enterprise that has been round for 57 years comes with its justifiable share of duty. “At any time, a buyer can stroll into the store and say that they’ve been consuming this cake for the final 30, 40 years. I really feel that I virtually have to strive more durable. When I got here again I knew it was not simple to take over this enterprise.