The Early Bird
Weighing scales, stickers, crates and knives form a fort around Leisa and the Liew family, who are packing up produce at double-time. We’ve unwittingly caught the team pre-Chinese New Year, smack in the middle of a flurry of shipments to The Grand Hyatt Singapore. Anxious to receive their greens before a languid period in the Asian calendar, restaurants and hotels are prone to hounding suppliers during this period. “It’s a logistical nightmare!” cries Leisa from the eye of the storm. “But we break for lunch soon.”
“If regional deliveries are cause for such pandemonium, what then of international export?” I ask. Blowing a raspberry, Leisa’s response says plenty.
Smaller Footprints
A great story Leisa loves to tell, and one that roped me in at our first meeting, details Weeds & More’s provenance. While working for The World’s 50 Best, Leisa made a gloomy discovery. She couldn’t quite fathom why so much of Singapore and Hong Kong’s produce was airfreighted from Australia, especially with Malaysia just next door.
“Malaysia is one of the only countries with the ideal elevation for European produce, which grows at a minimum of 1,000 metres above sea level. Indonesia has the ideal terrain too, but they’re not organised enough,” she shrugs. “There is a huge amount of opportunity in Southeast Asia that’s completely untapped.”
A renowned restaurateur in Singapore heard her out, but asserted that it simply was not possible to grow European produce in Asia — not of the same caliber, certainly. That’s when Leisa made a brazen bet that would birth Weeds & More. Sure it wasn’t an overnight process, but lo and behold: “I now have two farms under my hands! And an organisation we grew from the ground up.”