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MALAYSIAN couple Paul Poh and Ashely Lam’s ardour for honey started years in the past throughout a visit into the jungles of Garut in West Jawa, Indonesia. When they had been provided a style of recent jungle honey, the curiosity to share the enjoyment of pure recent honey with individuals right here in Malaysia and to deliver a change to the bee farmer natives of the land. With this in thoughts, Jungle House was developed to offer customers with uncooked, pure and natural honey from the jungles of the world.
Jungle House has earned a reputation as Malaysia’s retail of Indonesian honey, bought at eight retail shops and on-line at junglehouse.com.my. Jungle House expands its enterprise by launching its first ever way of life retailer cafe in Bangsar department. It is a specialty retailer recognized for utilizing pure flower nectars from fruits to make its merchandise which incorporates honey heat, fruity drinks, honey desserts, espresso, tea, its well-known Russian Honey Cake to non-public care merchandise like honey masks, cleaning soap, present units and extra.
theSun spoke with the husband-and-wife founders to find extra about them and their journey to success with Jungle House. The couple, chief govt officer Paul Poh and chief enterprise officer Ashley Lam, launched the Jungle House model, described because the “first honey lifestyle specialty store in Malaysia since year 2018”. The gifted couple first met one another in 2014.
While Paul has been operating entrepreneurship more often than not in his profession, Ashley has been concerned with honey trade for greater than 14 years. She began her profession by promoting honey in street exhibits.
The inspiration of the model got here into their life throughout certainly one of their journeys to Indonesia. They found a really particular wild jungle honey throughout their adventurous journey with an indigenous bee hunter there. They talked about they’ve tasted honey earlier than, however not like this – pure, natural, unadulterated, uncooked honey, flavoured solely by the flowers that the honeybees go to for nectar and pollen.
“This is what real honey is meant to taste like,” the couple shared. “So, we decided to bring this honey back to our country and into people’s life as we believe the honey is the best natural gift from nature.”
The couple wished clients to understand Jungle House as a model that put objective over revenue.
They defined: “We learnt a lot of about how bees are critical in our eco-system to protect the world. We learnt about bees’ life and became aware that they are the champion pollinators for more than 75% of our global agriculture crops. So apart from sharing the joy of pure honey, protecting the natural ecosystem of the honeybees, and supporting the bee hunters who risk life and limb for this precious, golden liquid, has become our life’s mission.”
When requested what are a number of the largest challenges they needed to overcome in the beginning of their journey, the couple had quite a bit to say.
“It is tough to build a brand that people trust during the early stage. [We] were running our business during the pandemic period most of the time. Retail business was badly affected since our presence was in malls mostly.
“However, we didn’t give up and we actually started our e-commerce channel, helping us to stay afloat during this challenging period. And also because of Covid, people started to realise the importance of health. Honey, as a superfood that contains multiple nutrients, [became] the preferred choice for people who wanted to boost their immunity.
“We overcame the challenges through connecting with our customer through Whatsapp and by phone, reaching out to new customer through online and e-commerce, and developing many honey gifts during MCO. Since people can’t meet face-to-face, delivering honey gifts has become something to represent their care to others.”
The couple additional defined the distinctiveness of their enterprise.
“Other than raw honey, we develop and turn honey into different products that is more related to day to day life. We have honey juices, honey tea, honey coffee and artisan crafted honey drinks that suit our customer needs and offer the convenience of being able to chill during a hot day with a healthy drink. We have our best-selling Russian Honey Cake, which has sold more than 10,000 boxes since 2021.
“We offer various honey gift series packed into nice boxes and themed according to festivals, which has gained a lot of interest from the general public. Our latest lifestyle hub which is a café with a retail section in Bangsar, allows people to enjoy and experience the whole range of all things honey products which can be easily integrated into their lifestyle.”
As all of us already know, success doesn’t come straightforward. The couple had been humble sufficient to think about their achievement as a begin, and dream to be extra profitable sooner or later.
“We would not consider having succeeded as yet in Malaysia, as many still haven’t develop the culture of consuming honey on a daily basis. It is a long road ahead of us but I think the journey is something we wanted to be part of and hopefully one day, Malaysia can be a country that cultivates honey culture into their daily life.”
When requested what their quick and long-term targets are, they defined: “Currently we are still very focused in Klang Valley, hopefully this year we are able to expand towards the north and the south. As for long term goals, we hope our brand can be seen in every city around the world. Just like Starbucks where they change people’s life with coffee, we hope one day we able to change people’s life with honey, to create sweet moments in their lives.”
