DESPITE having only two products, The Golden Duck has made quite a splash so far. The gourmet snacks startup came to be just two years ago. Salted egg yolk was a trending wave that everyone wanted to ride – from buns to salted egg chicken. Even McDonald’s had salted-egg flavoured burgers.
The startup’s products are salted egg yolk potato crisps and fish skin crisps.
“It was Jon’s idea and he pulled together a team of us and said why don’t we do it on a snack, nobody’s done it on a snack,” co-founder Chris Hwang recalls, attributing partner Jonathan Shen’s innovative thought to a businessman’s intuition in spotting upcoming trends. Both co-founders have had experience setting up companies on their own as well as collaborated on a few together in industries such as nightlife, restaurant bars and media. It is, however, their first time venturing into the food manufacturing industry.
With The Golden Duck growing at such a fast rate, they have had to invest all their time and energy into the business, thus passing the baton in their previous start ups. Naming the brand The Golden Duck was a balancing act between preserving the culture and nostalgia surrounding salted eggs and appealing to the millennial audience. As a young company, they wanted a cute symbol that people felt was approachable, thus settling on a duck as their ambassador.
“I think the ‘gold’ part is very important because all around Asia, it is a symbol of wealth and we are selling very premium-priced products,” Mr Shen, who takes charge of the more creative aspects of business, explains.
Apart from branding themselves to be easily remembered, the company prides itself in giving their consumers a good experience; from getting the actual product to engaging and interacting online through emails as well as on Facebook. “This salted egg thing has been going around for about three years, it’s a very saturated market. At the end of the day, the winners here are the players that actually focus on the consumer,” Mr Shen adds.