I am sitting on a stool in a nondescript warehouse unit in Delta Road. The floor is cement and the walls painted in white. A row of commercial refrigerators hum quietly, intercepted occasionally with the rattling of trolleys transporting goods along the common corridor.
There is nothing glamourous about this setting, but behind the glossy panels of those refrigerators sit thousands of dollars’ worth of imported truffles, waiting to be transported to popular fine-dining restaurants such as Michelin-starred Odette and Zen. This warehouse belongs to Woodland Truffles. The “truffle concierge service” (as described on its website) was founded only in 2019, but now boasts between 300 to 400 active customers.
With such a thriving business, it is surprising to find out that its founders Benedict Dorai, 35, and Marcus Heng, 32, had no prior F&B experience. In fact, Woodland Truffles began – in typical start-up fashion – from their bedrooms. “We stored the truffles in wine chillers,” said Heng, chuckling at those early days.
“But the volume of the products was growing to the point that our bedrooms were not able to contain them,” Dorai added. Making deliveries from their homes – the former in Woodlands and the latter in Sengkang – to restaurants in the city centre also did not make logistic sense. Hence two years into the business, they moved into the current 1,000-sq-ft warehouse.
The pair’s friendship goes back many years. They met through mutual friends, just.