Traditional candy maker eyes expansion

Many traditional local mobile food candy carts have closed down in the past few years due to the changing environment in the city and expensive rentals. In an interview with Business Daily, Kenny Yuen Ngan Chio, whose family owns Yu Kei Dragon Beard Candy, shares his new business plans that could help sustain and expand this candy business in the future. How did your father start running the mobile candy cart 40 years ago? He always wanted to open his own business. He had worked in many different jobs in Hong Kong such as a cook and even a painter for advertising billboards. At that time, he had to share a metal-cage home with others. One of his housemates was a dragon beard candy maker, so my father was inspired to learn how to make dragon beard candy. He learnt it by himself and started his business in Hong Kong first. A few years later, he moved back to Macau as it was difficult for him to find a job in Hong Kong. Why do you think quite a number of mobile food carts in Macau have disappeared? There used to be a lot of mobile food carts near the Red Market, but not anymore. Many mobile food carts have been closed. In the past, there were two other mobile candy carts selling dragon beard candy in the city, but they could not find people to do the job so they had to close down their businesses. In addition, most of the generation from the 80s are working for the city’s casinos. Perhaps, some of them don’t want to take over the traditional businesses, as it requires a lot of hard work to run. So why did you decide to take over your father’s business? At first, I wasn’t interested at all. In 2001, I moved to the UK to study biology. One day, my father called me and asked me to come back to Macau to learn how to make dragon beard candy. I listened to my father and I came back to learn it for one year. In 2011, I decided to move back to Macau for good, especially because my father had an injury with his hands from overworking at that time. Seeing that my father did not want to give up his business, I decided to help him and look after the candy cart. Why did you move the business to the Village Mall? I always wanted to have a bigger store for my business. As a mobile candy cart does not always have enough facilities or space for us to work in, especially now we have added new flavors, we needed to have a fridge for that. As a result, we decided to move to a new location. Was it difficult when you were looking for new places? Rental is very expensive in Macau. It is impossible to rent a store to sell candy, which may only cover the operating costs. But luckily, in June this year, the manager of the Village Mall, Window Lei, asked me if I was interested in opening a store in the mall to sell candy. The rental he offered was a lot cheaper than any other places in the city. So we accepted the offer. In fact, the location of the mall is good as it is situated in a busy area of the city, where I see there is potential to grow the business. Operational challenges Have you faced any challenges so far? Before we moved into the Village Mall, we had moved to outside the Red Market and to a market area in the Three Lamps District. Both of these locations had insufficient space for us to have a demonstration room, as I wanted to show people how I make the candy from scratch. Previously, I had to make everything in advance at home. Fortunately, we can now do it all inside the Village Mall. Who are your major customers? Most of my customers are from Hong Kong, besides local regular customers. We have some young people too. Most of the tourists order our candy by placing orders on the phone and coming to pick it up at our store. Hong Kong customers tell me they don’t like the taste of dragon beard candy made in Hong Kong, so they come to Macau to buy my candy in bulk. How do you ensure the quality of your products? The quality of the ingredients we use is important for our business. Our main ingredients were imported from Mainland China in the past. One time, we forgot to check the ingredients we bought and later on we found that the shredded coconut we used had a problem. We did not notice this until our customers complained to us. After this incident, some of our customers lost trust in us, so the quality of the products is extremely important. As a result, we cannot afford not to test the ingredients before using them. We then changed to another supplier for better ingredients. Re-branding the product How do tourists know about your candy? A lot of travel magazines introduce the Three Lamp District. Even though it is a local area, you can see many tourists going there and being interested in eating local food. They know my number from the magazines so they can call me to order the candy. However, we have had fewer Mainland Chinese visitors since 2015. We used to receive so many orders that we did not even have enough human resources to handle the demand. How have you re-branded your products? We registered our brand name in August this year to avoid others from copying it. Also, we don’t want to limit ourselves by selling only traditional dragon beard candy. Therefore, we designed a new logo for our brand name to diversify our product range. Previously, my brother wanted to commercialize the candy business, so he partnered with his friend and tried to open a candy business for two years in Rua da Felicidade. However, due to the expensive rental at that location, he closed down the business. Do you have a marketing strategy for the business? We don’t put much effort into promoting our products. In the past, we did not do any promotions at all, when we were still a mobile food cart on the street near the Red Market. Right now, the Village Mall is helping us promote our products on social media such as Facebook. Suncity Group, Sands Cotai Central and Macau Group invited us in the past to do candy making demonstrations at their spring banquets. Do tourists tend to spend more than locals? Definitely, on average they spend ten times more than locals. Locals tend to come here to buy one box of candy only. For instance, I used to have one Hong Kong visitor coming here to buy 200 boxes of candy at one time. Future goals Are you aiming to develop your business into a large-scale food souvenir chain? For us, it is impossible to rent a store in a tourist location due to the expensive rental. My goal of course is to have a similar business model like Koi Kei [Bakery]. But it takes time for us as we are now just in the beginning stage of development. Do you have any future plans? One major obstacle is that our products are all handmade, which means that when we have more orders, we need to hire more workers to meet the demand. Due to this constraint, I have thought of investing in a machine to replace the hand making process, which would also help to decrease human resource costs and even grow the business faster. However, there is no machine that can do this job so far. We need more capital and human resources in order to grow our business. We cannot just do all the things on our own like my father did in the past. What is the alternative plan then? Opening a factory to hire 50 to 100 workers is also a solution to increase the production of candy in order to deal with the growth of business in the future. We are still thinking about new ideas to expand our business. We may try to open a café and combine it with selling the candy, so people can eat inside the Mall or take away. This idea also matches the theme of the Village Mall for people to come and enjoy. Secondly, if the business grows as we plan, we will start positioning the candy as souvenirs for tourists. The Candy Successor In 2013, Kenny Yuen Ngan Chio, the son of the owner of Yu Kei Dragon Beard Candy, decided to move back from the UK to his home city Macau, to take over his father’s 40-year-old candy business. He believed that creating new flavors for the traditional candy, re-branding it and relocating the business could help his father’s business to expand from a mobile candy cart to an independent store. In August, he successfully opened a store inside the city’s first cultural creative focused mall, the Village Mall in Rua do Campo. Dragon Beard Candy The name of the candy comes from its appearance, which looks like the beard of a dragon. The candy is made from corn syrup that is stretched into many white silky-like threads. These threads are used to wrap fillings that include shredded coconut, peanuts and sesame. The history of dragon beard candy dates back to the Chinese Han Dynasty. At that time, the candy was made and shown in demonstrations as a form of entertainment for the Emperor. In the past, the candy was only made for the nobility to eat, but the sweet has now become a significant local street food in the city.