‘Sometimes it just needs to taste good’: Jobbie banks on flavour, brand collabs to grow in Asia’s nut butter space
Malaysian peanut butter brand Jobbie’s recent chocolate almond butter launch and collaboration with global brands including Famous Amos are aimed at boosting its appeal among younger Asians.
Jobbie’s approach to growth blends indulgent innovation with strategic collaborations. The firm regularly works with well-known brands to create new flavour experiences — a move it says appeals to younger and more adventurous consumers.
One example is its top-selling collaboration with Famous Amos, where crushed chocolate chip cookies are blended into peanut butter. A second partnership is in the works, expected to follow a similar concept.
Hey! Chips taps clean label, texture trends for new fruit bites launch
Singapore-based Hey! Chips has expanded its clean snacks portfolio with a new range of freeze-dried fruit bites, which it claims offer a unique melt-in-your-mouth texture.
Hey! Chips is best known for its range of crunchy whole vegetable snacks, having opted to move away from conventional extruded snacks to establish a ‘whole ingredient’ unique selling point.
All its products are clean label with no sugar or preservatives added, and a standard ingredient list of just two to three items.
“With our crunchy snacks range having hit its stride and finding entry into all the premium supermarkets in Singapore, we wanted to create something even more unique but still true to our clean label ideology,” Hey! Chips Founder and CEO Emily Chu told FoodNavigator-Asia at the recent Food and Hotel Asia (FHA) 2025 event in Singapore.
Cell-cultured coffee: Food tech firm eyes Asia for large-scale launch to combat supply chain woes
Cell-cultured coffee could address pricing, quality, and other supply chain inefficiencies in Asia, says Singapore foodtech firm Another Food.
The firm is leveraging plant cell culture to optimise coffee production, significantly shortening the harvest cycle. It aims to produce a harvest every 14 days – roughly 20 times faster than traditional farming.
“A small coffee farm typically produces around 800 kilograms of coffee per year. Using our technology, we could scale up to 15 to 20 tonnes annually,” said CEO Stéphane Chen.
Frutti Sugar looks to fill gap in sugar substitutes for foods, functional drinks with allulose
Singapore start-up Frutti Sugar says its production technology is able to drive down cost and scale up production of allulose.
Allulose is a naturally occurring sugar alternative with significant application potential in foods, functional beverages such as sports drinks, and supplements.
Due to its studied ability to curtail post-meal glucose spikes and improve insulin sensitivity, allulose is emerging as an alternative to conventional sweeteners, and has shown promise for use in functional beverages and supplement formulations to support metabolic health.
Allulose has been approved by countries including the US, Australia, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea as a sugar substitute.
Singapore’s Altimate Nutrition debuts cricket protein bars in retail channels, seeks to expand distribution
Singapore start-up Altimate Nutrition has launched its cricket protein bars via both offline and online retail channels, while actively seeking distributors and expanding direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales.\
This development has been a long time coming for the firm, having awaited regulatory approval for nearly four years.
After the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) announced the approval of 16 species of insects for consumption in July 2024, Altimate Nutrition kickstarted its production in Thailand, although it took three months before the first batch of products arrived in Singapore.
