Jumpstart Magazine July/August 2014 | Page 18

16 JUMPSTART A Juice Detox Company INTERVIEW WITH PUNCH DETOX TELL US ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS Punch Detox is Hong Kong’s first juice detox business, providing organic, vegan, coldpressed juices for Hong Kong people. Our goal is to fill your body with nutrients, give your body a rest, and as a result, help your liver, kidneys, lungs, skin and intestines naturally eliminate toxins. JUMPSTART Our biggest challenge was educating the public about our products. We were the first to bring not just the product, but the concept of juice detox and its health benefits to Hong Kong. A Pie Company INTERVIEW WITH TAI TAI PIE PIES WHERE DO YOU SOURCE INGREDIENTS FROM? WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CREATE TAI TAI PIE PIES? Everywhere. Quality is one of our core values, and for ingredients, this means providing different types of ingredients to provide a rainbow of nutrients. They can’t always be found in one place, so we buy from organic farms such as Earthbound Farms in California and small family organic farms in Australia. We also source from farms in northern Thailand as well as local organic farms. Since produce can be affected by seasonality, we are always looking for new suppliers to improve our list of farms that we buy from. Tai Tai Pie Pies was all based on my passion for pies and my friends who enjoyed them. They were constantly telling me I should sell them here in Hong Kong. My love of pies stems from a great upbringing with a mother and grandmother who made amazing, sweet pies for me when I was a child. After I left the corporate world I took some time off and relaxed. I was baking for fun and friends were calling me a Tai Tai – that is where is it all began with the name! My wife and I then did some market research and we realized there are not many pie places out here in Hong Kong. On June 28, 2010 we founded the company and we had our official launch in October. It was held at the AWA Holiday Bazaar and Thanksgiving 2010 was our first big Pie Week. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO LAUNCH YOUR BUSINESS? From the beginning when we were holding our own 10-day cleanse program, which included yoga with Leah Kim and Pilates with Tracy So, to running a fullylicensed food factory, three-day juice detox programs, and an interactive website with online shopping functionality – about three years. Research and development was the most important component. Relying on the knowledge from our nutrition classes in Hong Kong and Ann’s culinary prowess from her days as a fine-dining chef in Manhattan, we invested heavily in our R&D, creating different types of delicious juices and effective detox programs. We got the feedback of over 200 people to tweak and perfect the recipes, offerings, and experience, before fully launching for all of Hong Kong. TELL US ABOUT THE DISTRIBITION PROCESS Distribution is daily. We ship either refrigerated or frozen. Wholesale is frozen, but not freezer-frozen, shock frozen! They are frozen in a very short amount of time to avoid the item from being damaged molecularly. It is amazing what these machines can do. The pies in our shops are kep