What The Puff produces as much as 1,500 puffs a day
Singapore’s hawker scene is just not wanting curry puff stalls. However when Lim Yuan Ming, 24, and his older brother Brandon, 29, determined to begin one, they weren’t making an attempt to out-tradition the traditionalists—they needed to offer the curry puff a contemporary twist.
Rising up round their mother and father’ Teochew porridge stall in Bedok, the brothers had a front-row seat to the realities of the hawker grind. That have formed their determination to construct one thing less complicated, extra scalable.
With their good friend Oh Chin Jie, 31—a skilled cook dinner—they pooled S$10,000 and launched What The Puff at Changi Village Hawker Centre in Dec 2024.
One and a half years later, they’ve three shops, a central kitchen producing 1,500 puffs a day, and have made S$500,000 in income for 2025, all whereas Yuan Ming remains to be ending his finance diploma at SUSS.
We spoke with Yuan Ming to learn how they acquired right here.
Hawker blood runs within the household
The Lim brothers are not any strangers to the hawker commerce. Their mother and father have been operating Lao Er, a Teochew porridge stall at Block 216 Bedok Meals Centre, for over a decade. Yuan Ming grew up serving to out—cashiering on weekends, loading toppings on porridge, and absorbing the rhythms of the commerce with out realising it.
However Teochew porridge, with its 20-dish day by day unfold ready from the early hours, wasn’t the mannequin they needed to comply with.
It was their father who pointed them towards curry puffs, even suggesting they experiment with including cheese to the curry filling—a barely uncommon mixture, partly impressed by the cheese-topped curry ramen pattern.
Once we tasted it, we thought, oh my god, it really works. Then we simply went for it.
Lim Yuan Ming
As soon as they’d the concept settled, they introduced in Chin Jie, Brandon’s good friend from Nationwide Service, who had gained culinary expertise at salad bar chain The Every day Reduce.
Chin Jie took the lead on recipe improvement, whereas Brandon centered on operations and Yuan Ming dealt with the backend work, together with administration, payroll, and provider relations.
Six months to get the puff proper
What The Puff at present sells 5 flavours, all wrapped in a thick, crumbly, old-school curry puff crust: the Unique Curry Puff and Sardine Puff at S$2 every, and the Tacky Curry Puff, Black Pepper Hen Puff, and Char Siew Hen Puff at S$2.50 every.
Easy sufficient on paper—however getting there was something however straightforward.
R&D started at dwelling in Oct 2024, two months earlier than the primary stall opened, and continued effectively after.
The trio spent weeks consuming curry puffs with family and friends as unofficial taste-testers, producing as much as eight iterations a day. After perfecting the fundamentals, the Tacky Curry Puff alone went via about 10 variations earlier than they have been happy.
The pastry proved the toughest half to nail, as small adjustments in elements, temperature, moisture, and even wind might have an effect on the consequence. It took almost six months of iterating earlier than the recipe was finalised.
“We simply ate loads of curry puffs—to the purpose we acquired slightly sick of them,” Yuan Ming stated with amusing.
From one stall to a few
Though the early days at their first outlet at Changi Village have been gradual, it taught them so much about enterprise.
Gross sales have been modest sufficient that the three founders spent over a month making the puffs themselves day by day earlier than hiring their first worker, and none of them drew full salaries for the primary six months.
Quickly sufficient, their dedication paid off, with returning prospects spreading the phrase about their funky puff flavours.
By late Jan 2025, they reinvested S$15,000 from the primary stall’s earnings to open a second outlet at Block 216 Bedok Meals Centre—simply two months after their launch, and in the identical hawker centre the place their mother and father run Lao Er.
In Jul 2025, they opened a 3rd outlet at Punggol Coast Hawker Centre in Punggol Digital District, funded with S$20,000. It has since develop into their strongest-performing outlet.
One shock for the workforce was that curry puffs aren’t only a breakfast merchandise. Once they trialled prolonged night hours at Punggol, demand stayed sturdy effectively previous their preliminary 3PM closing time, prompting them to regulate working hours accordingly.
“No matter can go unsuitable, will go unsuitable”
However operating a enterprise is just not with out its ups and downs.
In Mar 2025, Brandon and Chin Jie have been known as up for reservist on the identical time—proper when Yuan Ming was in the course of his exams. He ended up operating the enterprise largely alone for 2 weeks, working 14-hour days. Alongside the best way, he additionally needed to take care of a supply failure and a fridge breakdown that ruined 400 puffs.
No matter can go unsuitable, will go unsuitable. Now I do know to have a plan for it.
Lim Yuan Ming
The workforce additionally ultimately determined to shut their Changi Village outlet.
Regardless of being their founding location, its distance from central Singapore made logistics difficult, and foot site visitors was affected by close by roadworks. In Jan 2026, they closed the stall and opened a brand new outlet at Haig Street Market & Meals Centre as an alternative.
Monetary setbacks have additionally been a part of the journey for the workforce.
Past the hawker centres, they introduced What The Puff to GastroBeats, a meals and music pageant, earlier in 2025. It gave them room to experiment with flavours, introducing festival-only specials like chilli crab, mentaiko tuna, and truffle mushroom.
Nonetheless, the pop-up got here at a value as they took a monetary hit of round S$8,000. Yuan Ming doesn’t see it as a failure, although.
“It gave us the possibility to determine if occasions are one thing we wish to pursue,” he stated. The expertise additionally linked them with different entrepreneurs additional alongside of their journey, providing a perspective they couldn’t have gotten from behind a hawker counter.
45,000 puffs a month & counting
Not too long ago, What The Puff made its first CBD look, increasing past the heartlands in late Might. By a collaboration, the model is now stocked at Hypha Provisions at Raffles Place MRT.
Probably the most vital operational milestone, nonetheless, got here in Dec 2025, when What The Puff arrange a central kitchen: a 100 to 200 sqft house staffed by 4 to 5 folks to scale manufacturing.
A lot of the puffs are actually ready there and distributed to shops for frying on-site, with the Punggol outlet remaining the one one dealing with end-to-end manufacturing.
This has elevated capability to round 1,500 puffs a day, translating to roughly 40,000 to 45,000 puffs a month throughout all shops. At S$2 to S$2.50 per puff, it isn’t stunning that the model hit S$500,000 in income in 2025.
Nonetheless, the central kitchen has additionally launched new value pressures, with manpower rising as the largest expense. The workforce is now exploring automation for sure components of manufacturing, although Yuan Ming is cautious to not lose what makes the product distinct.
At the moment, all puffs and fillings are nonetheless constituted of scratch.
The dough is crushed the day earlier than, then portioned and wrapped from round 8AM till early afternoon. “The feel you get from hand-forming the perimeters is just not simply replicated by equipment,” Yuan Ming stated. “That issues to us.”
Wrapping velocity, no less than, has improved dramatically—from 30 to 45 seconds per puff within the early days to underneath 20 seconds now.
What The Puff additionally makes positive not a lot goes to waste. Unfried puffs are saved frozen till wanted, so the workforce solely fries what they count on to promote. For broken or leftover inventory, they’ve partnered with meals redistribution platform Meals Device, the place extra puffs are listed at decrease costs for anybody who needs them.
10 stalls in 5 years
For now, the trio prioritises stability over velocity. The workforce needs to tighten manufacturing consistency, refine the menu, and get their techniques strong earlier than pushing additional.
They’ve their eye on the West, North, and South of Singapore, as on-line orders have already been coming in from these areas, and a fourth outlet is deliberate for the second half of 2026. Their five-year objective is 10 stalls islandwide.
Collaborations are additionally on the horizon, although Yuan Ming is ready till manufacturing is steady sufficient to take them on correctly.
For anybody pondering of entering into the hawker scene, his recommendation is to count on chaos, plan for it anyway, and don’t underestimate how taxing the surroundings is.
“It’s scorching, oily, and issues will inevitably go unsuitable,” he stated. “However the authorities offers loads of subsidies and grants to assist folks are available in. If you wish to strive it, strive it now—earlier than the stress to play it secure will get too loud.”
Discover out extra about What The Puff right here.
Learn different articles about Singaporean companies right here.
Featured Picture Credit score: HungryGoWhere/ @springtomorrow by way of Instagram
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