18
FEBRUARY 2017
EPOCH TIMES
BUSINESS & PROPERTY
‘Coffee Shop King’
Reveals the Ethos Behind Koufu’s Success By Seah Loi Shun | Epoch Times Staff
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As human beings, we live to create value. I think this is the purpose of living.
oufu’s logo consists of four brisk calligraphy brush strokes that represent the Chinese character ‘mouth’. Since its inception in 2002, Koufu believes that it is one’s good fortune to partake in delicious food. The founder and managing director of Koufu, Mr Pang Lim—affectionately known as the ‘Coffee Shop King’—audaciously sold his coffee shop business, Aik Hua, to Kopitiam Investment Pte Ltd in 2002, and re-entered the food and beverage (F&B) market with the ‘Koufu’ brand. His company integrates contemporary food court design with traditional, coffee shop management style. Within two years of its establishment, Koufu had received numerous branding and entrepreneurial awards, including the Singapore Promising Brand Award in 2004, the Most Distinctive Brand Award in 2006, The Enterprise 50 Outstanding Business Award for five consecutive years (2005– 2009) and Singapore Productivity Award in 2016. Under Mr Pang’s visionary business acumen, Koufu has grown from three coffee shops to a well-established organisation of over 70 food courts and coffee shops, both at home and abroad, employing more than 1,000 people. Conferred the Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2004, Mr Pang underscores the importance of incorporating its core values – ‘Better Food’, ‘Better People’ and ‘Better Life’ – into its business development vision, thus bringing ‘Koufu’ (good food) and good service to Singaporeans. In an exclusive interview with Epoch Times, Mr Pang shares Koufu’s ethos of success.
Mr Pang Lim, founder and managing director of Koufu
Epoch Times (ET): Koufu has always been
supportive of charitable causes. Could you talk more about this? Pang Lim: Let me start with [the question] “What is charity?” It’s doing good for others, bringing about joy, and at the same time having a beneficial effect on society and human development. Charitable activities tend to bring out the goodness in human nature. A typical Koufu customer is the man-in-the-street, therefore Koufu has the obligation and responsibility to do good things for the general public. In view of the above, Koufu has been supporting charities, hoping to make society a better place, with people helping one another. For society to advance together, we need to help those lagging behind. From this perspective, Koufu has been supportive of charitable causes. ET: During the initial stage of launch-
ing Koufu—when the business wasn’t that stable—had you ever thought of contributing to charitable causes as a
Mr Pang Lim is a reader and thinker who is passionate about building a learning organisation and giving back to society.
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