Reshaping a family business while honouring tradition

Reviving a family tradition

Ana Fong remembers clearly the moment she made a real impact on her family business, Tong Heng, a boutique patisserie in Singapore. The company had been selling egg tarts and other Cantonese delicacies since the 1930s, and more recently had become the most celebrated bakery in the country – a staple of any society wedding or tea party. 

Having periodically worked at the shop, on South Bridge Road, as a child and young adult, Fong had rejoined Tong Heng full-time when she was in her 40s, helping her two paternal aunts, Rebecca and Constance Fong, who were running the business.  

Modernising a heritage Singapore pâtisserie

A couple of years after starting, she suggested to her aunt Rebecca – whom she calls “the brain behind the business” – that the shop, and its ornately branded traditional Chinese packaging and branding, needed to be refreshed to appeal to a new generation. 

Her suggestion was not well received – at first, anyway. “She did not give me an instant ‘no’,” says Fong. “She didn’t respond to me at all. She just gave me a poker face. She was just very quiet. That day when I got home, I thought to myself, ‘Was I not clear when I said that? Or was it that she did not understand me?’” 

Fong decided to let some time pass, and ask again. “And again, I did not get a response. Then I realised that the person I was suggesting this to was the brain behind the brand. My auntie [Rebecca] was the one who, in the 1980s, designed the packaging and the shop layout. She innovated, and brought in a lot of new offerings to appeal to the younger generation of that time.  

“So I realised she was thinking, ‘I created everything, and everything has been going fine. With this business model, it has been supporting the family for decades… how does it not work?’”

Fong had to wait another four years until her moment came. One day, her other aunt, Constance, came to her and said she thought the shop needed a refurbishment. Fong replied that it was time for a complete rebrand.  

“I said we need to appeal to a generation who have camera phones and will post on social media. My aunt said that those people don’t have any money, but I replied that whether they have money or not, they are spending money!”

The delicate art of change in a family business

Ana Fong got her way, and employed an agency to rethink the brand’s visuals, the store, and its digital marketing. The new Tong Heng, launched in 2018, was an instant hit with the social media generation. The contemporary look of the cake boxes saw an instant increase in gifting and social media amplification, says Fong, while the shop itself had a lighter, more welcoming and sleeker look. It also retained elements such as the traditional Chinese characters round the store front. 

“As soon as we rolled out the new look, I could see the percentage of the younger audience and customers coming in had increased more than 50 per cent. One day, soon afterwards, I was at the store behind the counter. Two young ladies in their early 20s walked in. They did not know our brand at all. They were just attracted by the shop layout and the beautiful packaging.”

There was one challenge: while Constance had been supportive in modernising the business, Rebecca remained opposed. “She did not talk to me for two years,” Fong says. This was awkward in two ways: they were working together, and in Chinese family culture, respect for your elders is sacrosanct. Eventually, Rebecca agreed that the new direction for the business had been successful, and little by little her aunts gave day-to-day control of the business to their niece.

Ana Fong says it was never a given that she would effectively take over the business, although she still refers to both of her aunts as “my bosses”, out of respect. “We are a very big family, and family members do a lot of different things,” she says. After attending a design school, Fong herself had initially gone into the education sector. She only made a move to join the business when she noticed that there were no family members from her generation involved; she was concerned about its long-term future. 

Preparing for the next generation

There was, however, no succession plan, and no structure to induct her into the business. When she joined, and before she dared raise the subject of refreshing the brand, she even had difficulty convincing the pastry chefs to try out some new recipes. “They were thinking, ‘I have been working here, who are you to tell me what to do?’” she says. She had to prove herself by working hard within the business. Unlike the rebranding, the new recipes came little by little, over the years. Now, Tong Heng even has rolled out a line of plant-based pastries to appeal to Gen-Z consumers: their traditional, signature egg tarts use lard (made from animal fat) in their pastry. 

Fong says she hopes the handover to a fifth generation will be more structured and open. Her niece, a member of that generation, currently works at Tong Heng part-time, and she hopes that will transition to a full-time job. “Her focus is mainly on marketing. We share thoughts; we are always bouncing ideas off each other because she’s the younger one. So I need to listen to her so that we are able to enable the brand to stay relevant to the younger generation.”