Singaporean Yiping Goh, 39, and her Spanish husband Carlos Bañón, 43, would journey to Spain twice a 12 months to go to their household and pals throughout pre-pandemic instances.

With Covid-19 limiting journey nevertheless, they couldn’t journey to Spain for the previous two years. Apart from household and pals, native delicacies like Spanish wines and meals like freshly sliced jamon iberico (Spanish ham), olives and cheeses, was one thing they really miss.

“It [became] a challenge for us to straight import our favorite Spanish delicatessen and wines to fulfill our personal cravings and in addition to share what we learn about Spain with our family and friends. We additionally noticed an enormous underrepresentation of Spanish connoisseur and wines right here in Singapore, regardless of it being a meals haven,” mentioned Yiping.

“Everytime we share our personal stash introduced again from our travels in Spain, our pals love them. So for a number of years now, we have now all the time thought Spanish meals and wines have an untapped alternative right here. Lastly, the journey lockdowns triggered us to take motion.”

The couple went on to determine CasaJulia — named after Carlos’ late mom — in October 2021, which is usually a “ardour challenge” that was born out of late nights feeding their second new child.

They’re no rookie entrepreneurs

The duo could be inexperienced to the F&B scene, however they’re each not new to the enterprise world.

Yiping is a serial tech founder. She is the previous co-founder of AllDealsAsia and MatahariMall (Indonesia) by Lippo Group — the identical group that produced unicorn OVO. Now, she is a enterprise capital investor and a companion at Quest Ventures, which has backed family names the likes of Carousell, ShopBack, Carro, 99.co, Type Idea, SGAG and Ion Mobility.

In the meantime, Carlos owns an award-winning structure agency known as Subarquitectura, and can be a professor on the Singapore College of Know-how and Design (SUTD).

That they had already performed some analysis legwork since a number of years in the past, so as soon as they put all the opposite bits and items collectively, they had been lastly able to kickstart the enterprise.

Nevertheless, though they’re each seasoned entrepreneurs, that they had some challenges navigating the enterprise of importing and F&B, which is one thing “fairly alien” from their common work in tech and design.

For example, that they had issue discovering the proper companions in Spain to work with, particularly since they’re nonetheless a fledgling startup and couldn’t fulfil any minimal buy quantity set by suppliers.

“We needed to persuade our suppliers that Singapore is a worthwhile new market to pursue and tread that superb steadiness,” mentioned Carlos.

Specifically, the couple feels that Asians’ palate preferences are just like Europeans’, and our tastebuds are appropriate with Spanish meals.

“We love our seafood, meats, rice, chilly platters and revel in good wines. However as a result of the Spanish culinary scene in Singapore is newer in comparison with the Italian and French, there’s nonetheless a lack of awareness of Spanish meals,” he added.

“Spanish wines are nearly as good, if not higher, than the opposite previous world wines, nevertheless it’s much less identified and underrated. In reality, for comparable high quality, Spanish wines normally price much less.”

Bringing a bit of Spain to Singapore

CasaJulia is actually a web-based market that straight imports Spanish meals favourites like jamon, uncommon wines, olive oil and cheeses, delivering them proper to the doorstep.

For these unacquainted, jamon is touted to be the best ham on the planet and has been dubbed as one of many nationwide culinary treasures of Spain. Like how Japan has its Kobe beef and prized sashimi, Spain prides itself on its Iberian ham.

Very like many different delicacies, they’re on the costly facet — costs can go above S$1,000 for about 8 to 9 kilograms, relying on its grade, which is decided based mostly on the parentage of the pigs, their feed and their ageing period.

“They (Iberian black pigs) are reared in essentially the most humane and free vary situations, [which] some say [are] essentially the most luxurious situations,” mentioned Yiping, justifying its price ticket.

Based on the couple, each product featured on their platform has been tried and tasted to their Spanish and Singaporean palates. So far, their bestsellers are their jamon iberico legs, sliced packs and wines.

In reality, the couple has noticed a gifting pattern for jamon throughout festive seasons like Christmas.

“For Chinese language New 12 months, we’re seeing extra pals nicknaming our jamon because the Spanish model of bak kwa, or ‘atas’ bak kwa, this season, particularly referring to the sliced packs. It’s humorous, nevertheless it has a sure resonance. They’re additionally manner more healthy, but tremendous scrumptious.”

In terms of their wines, they’re sourced from throughout Spain, together with these from “under-discovered” areas and up-and-coming boutique wineries, whose first batches solely consist of some hundred to few thousand bottles.

“We import [our wines] straight from Spain, working with high and off the common cuff sommeliers there,” shared Carlos.

“Specifically, we have now this loopy uncommon underwater wine, Attis Mar, which had been submerged below the Atlantic Ocean for its ageing course of — one thing that’s distinctive and makes the white wine far more intense and has a very lengthy end.”

Yiping careworn that CasaJulia helps to bridge the hole for purchasers to get pleasure from freshly reduce jamon and discover unique wines which might be hardly exported out of Spain, as a lot of them solely serve their home markets.

“We actually wish to deliver that have of touring by way of Spain with out being bodily there, or to nurse the withdrawal signs of somebody who’s been to Spanish cities earlier than and miss wines from there,” she added.

Achieved a five-figure income in two months

Covid-19 has negatively impacted many companies, nevertheless it has additionally spurred the emergence of recent ones — CasaJulia being one in every of them.

When requested how the pandemic has affected their enterprise, Yiping mentioned that it’s a double-edged sword because it serves as each a enterprise risk and alternative.

“Persons are wanting ahead to attempting out new experiences once they can’t journey as a lot. They see attempting out new culinary experiences as a manner of touring, and [it helps] that extra individuals are internet hosting [meals] at dwelling today.”

She additionally acknowledged that tightened Covid-19 restrictions on family guests can result in extra hesitation in the case of shopper buy, however as an entire, she feels that the alternatives outweigh the threats with the increase of e-commerce.

In reality, the bootstrapped enterprise has already damaged even, and inside two months, it achieved five-figure gross sales with no advertising spend.

This can be a testomony to CasaJulia’s regular development, however the couple are usually not resting on their laurels. In spite of everything, the F&B house could be very saturated and aggressive.

To final within the sport, they really feel that it’s essential to “discover their very own area of interest and keep forward of tendencies”. On the identical time, they’re making it a degree to repeatedly enhance their choices and repair high quality to win prospects’ hearts.

“Most significantly, whereas we made our calculations, and checked a number of key assumptions again and again, we selected to not overthink and determined to simply begin [because] we all know that if we have now a protracted checklist of standards {that a} startup thought should meet, we are going to by no means begin,” mentioned Carlos.

“With CasaJulia, we adopted our hearts, however we additionally adopted alternative gaps that this pandemic offered and remains to be unravelling. We went with beginning small first, doing little experiments, and iterating alongside the best way.”

Within the subsequent few months, CasaJulia plans to develop the enterprise line to incorporate different Spanish product akin to introducing a variety of sea salts that’s uncommon to return by right here.

Sharing different future enterprise plans, the couple additionally mentioned that they’re exploring the thought of organising offline pop-up occasions, collaborations with eating places, and ultimately arrange a bodily retailer when the time is correct.

“Our final aim is to be the top-of-mind alternative for shoppers in the case of Spanish connoisseur and wines”.

Featured Picture Credit score: CasaJulia