How Singapore’s Bee Cheng Hiang with its famous grilled meat grew from a one-man street stall into an Asian powerhouse
- Founded in 1933, the company famous for its ‘bak kwa’ now has hundreds of outlets employing 3,000 people worldwide
- The brand uses only premium pork and marinades, but the recipe is a family secret
For many families throughout Asia, Chinese New Year would not be complete without a few servings of barbecued preserved pork.
A snack that is particularly popular in southern China and Southeast Asia, these flat slices of sweet, barbecued meat are called yuk gon in Cantonese and rou gan in Mandarin, but they’re best known as bak kwa, which comes from the southern Chinese dialect of Hokkien.
Arguably the best-known bak kwa brand is Singapore’s Bee Cheng Hiang, which traces its history back to 1933.
Founder Teo Swee Ee literally established the brand on his back: he would shoulder a bamboo pole holding two baskets around Singapore, one basket containing a charcoal grill and the other full of freshly cooked bak kwa.
Teo would set up his grill outside public entertainment venues, such as open-air opera sheds, where his barbecued meats sold well, especially during festive occasions. He eventually made enough money to open a store on Rochor Road, near the mouth of the Singapore River, in 1945 and later opened a second shop nearby on Victoria Street.
Unfortunately, Victoria Street was a popular parking spot for trucks, which hid Teo’s store from potential customers. So the enterprising Teo came up with a solution that worked even better than expected: he paid the owner of the fleet to let him paint his company name and logo on the trucks.
