While named after its bakery brand, the group’s portfolio comprises a number of other brands, including directly-owned Toast Box, Food Republic, Food Junction and Thye Moh Chan, along with partner brands like Din Tai Fung and Wu Pao Chun Bakery.
The group has over 700 outlets across more than a dozen markets, according to its website.
A BreadTalk store. Photo from the company’s website |
From growing up in an attap house (wooden shack) in Singapore to building a global food business, Quek’s journey has been an unlikely one.
Born in 1956, he did his turn in the army before taking a job at a handicraft shop in Singapore, where he met his future wife, Katherine Lee.
The couple left for Taiwan in 1982 with S$2,000 from Quek’s father, a seaman turned farmer. Quek had planned to study art there and become a painter.
But the money did not last long and the couple soon found themselves selling a traditional Chinese candy called Dragon Beard to make ends meet. Quek then went on to introduce Singaporean dishes to Taiwan through Singa.
“I didn’t know anyone there, but the hardship brought out survival instincts,” Quek told Forbes in 2012. “My father had trusted that I’ll make good his entire savings, so this made me not pack up and return home.”
After selling Singa, he briefly ventured into Shanghai’s ice cream business before returning home to launch food court chain Food Junction, which grew over the years and earned him the nickname “Foodcourt King.”
Quek then left the business to start BreadTalk with his wife, taking inspiration from the boutique bakeries of Japan and Taiwan, according to Tatler.
The brand quickly made a name for itself with its bread and pastries, particularly its signature floss bun, created by Lee
Quek later expanded the group’s businesses beyond bakeries, bringing in Taiwan’s Din Tai Fung and returning to food courts with Food Republic. He also extended the group’s reach beyond Singapore.
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George Quek (right) and his wife Katherine Lee. Photo from BreadTalk Singapore’s Facebook |
The group’s growth, however, has not been without setbacks. It faced a controversy in 2015 for selling repackaged Yeo’s soya milk and had to apologize.
The company went public in Singapore in 2003 but was taken private in 2020 amid financial struggles that were compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.
More recently, its BreadTalk and Food Republic brands have been under pressure in China.
Food Republic closed its final outlet in Beijing early last month, leaving the food court chain with just four locations in the country, all in Shanghai, compared with more than 40 at its peak in the mid-2010s. BreadTalk’s bakery network there has also shrunk to about 200 stores nationwide from around 460 a decade ago.
“F&B is a tough business,” he told The Straits Times in 2018. “It’s a lot of hard work. Everything must be right every day.”
These days, the family’s next generation has also stepped into the business. George and Katherine’s son, Jonathan Quek, joined BreadTalk Group in 2020 shortly after completing his master’s degree in real estate, according to Vulcan Post.
More than two decades on, BreadTalk continues to innovate, regularly introducing new products and store concepts to keep pace with changing consumer tastes.
Asked in a 2019 interview what motivated him, the founder Quek pointed to both how he was constantly hungry as his family was poor.
“I had to work hard, show results in order to achieve the life I wanted. When you’re hungry, you are driven to work hard,” he told CNBCadding, “You will be motivated to expand further as you need to look after the team’s growth and their livelihood is in your hands.”
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