[Feature image: Hayden Leow at the back row. First row from left: Aveline Ho, Cleo Shih]
By the SMU Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Hayden Leow, an SMU School of Information Systems alumnus (class of 2015), is a familiar face in the entrepreneurial community. After dabbling in various startups, he co-founded DingGo, a mobile application to notify users of nearby deals on food, beverage, and entertainment. Today, he is the director of Amazin’ Graze, a startup based in Malaysia and Singapore focusing on producing freshly baked and handmade snacks. The brand has since proven that healthy food can be equally appetising!
To better understand Amazin’ Graze, we interviewed Hayden about the brand’s philosophy and how they hope to shape the way people eat.
Though not one of the co-founders of Amazin’ Graze, Hayden saw the brand’s potential once he started helping out. “The founders are friends of mine, and they let me try the products which I thought were great,” said Hayden. “I see big potential in Singapore where people are getting more health conscious and working adults are too busy to cook their own meals.”
Having secured more than $1,000 worth of sales per day at a traditional marketplace, he knew that this could turn into a viable business. Trusting his instinct, he decided to join the team and spread the joy of healthy eating.
“We believe that being healthy is not about limiting our food intake and making ourselves miserable.” – Hayden Leow
Indeed, Amazin’ Graze is definitely not your typical health snack store. From flavours such as Miso Szechuan Nut Mix to Love Letter Kaya Granola, the brand stands out by having products specifically catered to the Asian palate. Aside from making their snacks with no refined sugar and salt, they aim to make them as indulgent as possible while retaining their nutritional value.
Hayden takes pride in Amazin’ Graze’s R&D team, which continuously creates new products with distinct flavours. “We take around three to six months from product development all the way to production, unlike bigger companies which usually take up to a year to launch new product lines,” he elaborated.
While other similar companies might rely heavily on suppliers, Amazin’ Graze’s snacks are freshly baked and handmade within three days before delivering to their customers. “We focus a lot on our products, making sure it’s freshly delivered to our customers and placing it at a good price point,” Hayden added. Instead of projecting the brand as a premium, the price point of the products was chosen to appeal to the mass market.
Currently, the brand has expanded from their online presence to a physical store at Raffles City Shopping Centre, as well as one at Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. Major supermarkets such as Cold Storage have also been carrying Amazin’ Graze products.
In line with their philosophy of healthy eating, Amazin’ Graze established Graze Academy, a one-stop-blog to share about health, food and eating better.
“Graze Academy is still a work-in-progress, but we hope it can become a platform that provides a curation of articles that resonate with our customers,” said Hayden. Ultimately, Amazin’ Graze hopes that the brand as a whole would be able to showcase its passion and drive in creating a healthier community.
If you would like to support Amazin’ Graze, incubated by the Business Innovations Generator, do order and try their signature snacks for yourself here!
This article was originally published by the SMU Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship website.
