A game of luck leads to food start-up
Key points
A disastrous hand at poker little over a year ago gave Bonnie Chung her fledging business’s first financial backer, hurling the company into existence in just months.
It sounds like a scene from a Bond film, but when fate sat the trained chef next to Yaser Martini – an alleged backer of Sipsmith Gin – at the card table, it was her lucky day, she admits.
“We met at a poker game organised by a mutual friend,” says Chung, who can’t help laugh while insisting it was nothing like a scene from the famous spy movies. “It was my first time playing. Neither of us did very well, but I found out he [Martini] was an investor in food businesses and I told him my great idea.”
Martini took little convincing of Chung’s desire to launch an instant miso soup brand, which needed a cash injection to get it going. Although, she refuses to reveal how much it took to get the idea off the ground.
Miso Tasty had been in Chung's mind for three years before her ‘lucky night’. The product is simple: one 20g sachet of miso paste and one sachet of vegetables and seaweed mixed together in boiling water by the consumer.
It also appealed to Sainsbury and Ocado – which started stocking it within a month of each other earlier this year – as well as Wholefoods, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols. Chung’s business idea also attracted backing from around 10 other investors, Food Manufacture understands.
However, Chung plays her cards close to her chest when asked about start-up costs and turnover: “I can’t tell you about that; we may be able to reveal turnover next year.” She also refuses to name her other backers and is reluctant to say how much product she has sold since the business turned one in March this year.
“I can’t tell you how much we’ve sold, but I can tell you that we’re looking to double our sales this year,” Chung adds. “In our first year, we imported about six tonnes of miso paste and we’re expecting to double that in our second year.” Six tonnes of miso paste is enough to manufacture the equivalent of 300,000 single servings of Miso Tasty.
The miso paste is made in Japan and imported to the UK, while the seaweed and vegetables are manufactured in the UK, she says. Both components are packaged in the UK.
However, Chung also refuses to reveal where in the UK the processing and packaging takes place. “I just can’t tell you. The investors wouldn’t want me to tell,” she says.
What she can talk about, in great detail, is how miso is made, how many varieties there are and how she plans to boost its popularity in the UK.
“A lot of people in the UK don’t know about miso at all, the few people that buy it may not even know there are thousands of varieties,” Chung claims.
Several factors decide the flavour of miso, including the ingredients and the fermentation time. “Miso is always made with soybeans and fermented with different grains. There’s barley miso, rice miso and pure soybean miso.”
Miso paste can be fermented for as little as 10 weeks or for as long as 10 years. The longer it's fermented, the deeper and more intense the flavour and colour is.
Chung uses two types of miso: a paste aged for six months is used for Miso Tasty’s ‘classic shiro miso soup’, while its ‘spicy aka miso soup’ is made using one that’s 12 months old.
Traditionally, miso is fermented and cured in 2t handmade cedar barrels and weighted with 1t of rocks that are placed to survive earthquakes, Chung claims. It originates from China, but was introduced to Japan 1,300 years ago by Buddhist priests and refined by the Samurai, she explains. “It was originally a prized delicacy and only enjoyed by the nobility, because it contained rice, which was a luxury in its day.”
Today, miso is exported from Japan to all corners of the world. However, awareness of it outside the Far East is still low, Chung adds.
It was Chung’s love of miso paste that drove her to start the business, she says. “I’ve always loved Japanese food and when I cook, my favourite ingredient is miso, because it’s so versatile – you can use it in a lot of recipes.”
Chung was born in Britain, but her family is from Hong Kong, which influenced her tastes, she says. A chef by trade, she started blogging about miso three years ago. “I started to blog about the whole concept of the business and had over 3,000 subscribers.”
But, even after she found financial backers and realised there was some consumer interest in her idea, it wasn’t easy getting things going. Chung claims it was impossible to find a UK manufacturer with the skills and capabilities to produce miso paste.
“A lot of my time in the early stages was taken up searching for and trialling UK and EU manufacturers but, unfortunately, no one could help us. In the UK, there’s no experience of making miso paste. Perhaps that’s changed now and we would be interested in any opportunities closer to home.”
Getting the paste from Japan to the UK also has its problems, she adds. “Importing anything from Japan requires a lot of paperwork, including radiation certificates. But it’s the best place to produce it [at the moment], so it’s worth it.”
Bonnie Chung’s top five tips for start-ups
- Never give up: Have the patience to realise your dreams. Understand that real success comes from a lot of perseverance and having the courage to keep going when it feels difficult. Even in the toughest moment, never lose sight of your vision and you will succeed.
- Keep a watch on food trends: Read all of the food press and attend as many trade shows as you can. The food and drink industry is a small world and it's important to speak to as many people in it as possible to stay ahead of the trends.
- Create a positive working environment: You will spend a lot of time at work with your team, so it’s important to make it a happy and fun place to be. Laugh, even when things are hectic and going wrong.
- Keep nurturing yourself: It is easy to get so focused on the business and the day-to-day activities that you forget you have a life. Working in a start-up is hard work and you can’t always recharge physically so recharging mentally is very important!
- Stay inspired: You can find inspiration from other food businesses to help you run yours better.
Although Miso Tasty has now survived its first year, Chung is facing other challenges. As a start-up, she struggles to find enough capital to market the brand as far and wide as she would like. Social media, however, is proving useful, along with the brand’s website, which is used as an online shop.
“We have our own inhouse photographer and designer to help us create bespoke visuals for our growing online following,” Chung says.
“Being able to sell your products online is key to understanding your customers you get to know first hand what they like and how they shop. Online is also a fantastic experimental space for you to try out new flavours, before launching them fully.”
Online also provides Chung with more freedom to create different offers and pack sizes for customers. They can subscribe to receive a box of miso soups by mail twice a month, which was inspired by the £53M turnover mail order snack firm Graze.com. In stores, consumers can only buy Miso Tasty products in single portion packs or in packs of four.
Despite its inflexibility, traditional 'bricks-and-mortar' retail is where Chung sees the most potential for her brand. She's currently in talks with other major retailers.
Yet, she wants to see miso paste given more attention by UK consumers in general, she says. The 30 year-old is trying to start a “miso revolution”. “I want every household to have a jar of miso paste in their cupboard – as they do with something like pesto.”
From her Dalston, London, office, she’s working on new products to kick-start that revolution. She’s pursuing areas where consumers are already comfortable and have recently seen changes, such as the premium pot noodle market: “We’re looking at lots of things for the future, noodles are one of those,” she says.
It’s not only UK domination, Chung also has her sight set on the international market and boldly believes the brand will be in either the US or in Europe before this year is up.
“We’re talking to distributors [to export] at the moment,” she says. “We’re looking at the US and the EU. The States would be more of a competitive market for us, because Japanese food is well established there. But, like the UK, the EU is an untapped market for a company like ours.”
In a short amount of time, Chung has gone from a chance meeting at the card table, to the beginnings of what she believes could be an international business. She may be bad at poker, but she's determined Miso Tasty will provide her with a straight flush.
Listen to our podcast with Chung to hear why she said there needed to be more government support for start-ups.
