What The Puff produces up to 1,500 puffs per day
Singapore’s hawker scene has no shortage of curry puff stands. But when Lim Yuan Ming, 24, and his older brother Brandon, 29, decided to start one, they weren’t trying to outdo the traditionalists—they wanted to give the curry puff a modern twist.
Having grown up next to their parents’ Teochew porridge shop in Bedok, the brothers had a front row seat to the facts of what the salesman was doing. That experience shaped their decision to build something simpler, bigger.
With their friend Oh Chin Jie, 31—a trained chef—they raised S$10,000 and got started. What is Puff at Changi Village Hawker Center in Dec 2024.
One and a half years later, they have three stores, a central kitchen that produces 1,500 puffs a day, and have made S$500,000 in revenue by 2025, all while Yuan Ming is still finishing his finance degree at SUSS.
We spoke to Yuan Ming to find out how they got here.
Hawker blood runs in the family
The Lim brothers are no strangers to the retail trade. Their parents have been running Lao Er, a Teochew porridge stall at Block 216 Bedok Food Center for more than ten years. Yuan Ming grew up helping—taking out money on weekends, loading lubricants into the pulp, and absorbing the rhythm of the trade without realizing it.
But the Teochew porridge, with its 20 daily dishes prepared from the morning, was not the model they wanted to follow.
It was their father who introduced them to curry puffs, and even suggested they try adding cheese to the curry filling—a slightly unusual combination, inspired by the trend of curry-topped ramen.
When we tasted it, we thought, oh my god, it really works. Then we just left.
Lim Yuan Ming
Once the idea settled, they brought in Chin Jie, a friend of Brandon’s from the National Service, who had gained culinary experience at the salad bar chain, Daily Cut.
Chin Jie took the lead on recipe development, while Brandon focused on operations and Yuan Ming handled back-end work, including administration, payroll, and supplier relations.
Six months to get the puff right
What The Puff currently sells five flavors, all wrapped in a thick, crumbly, old-school curry crust: Original Curry Puff and Sardine Puff at S$2 each, and Cheesy Curry Puff, Black Pepper Chicken Puff, and Char Siew Chicken Puff at S$2.50 each.
Easy enough on paper—but getting there was anything but easy.
IR&D started at home in Oct 2024, two months before the first store opened, and continued well after that.
The trio spent weeks eating curry puffs with friends and family as illicit taste testers, producing eight iterations a day. After perfecting the basics, the Cheesy Curry Puff alone went through about 10 variations before they were satisfied.
The pastry proved to be the most difficult part to nail, as small changes in the ingredients, temperature, humidity, or air can affect the result. It took about six months of iteration before the recipe was perfected.
“We just ate a lot of curry puffs – to the point of getting a little sick of them,” Yuan Ming said with a laugh.
From one to three places
Although the first days at their first location in Changi Village were slow, they taught them a lot about business.
Sales were so modest that the three founders spent more than a month making puffs themselves every day before hiring their first employee, and none of them earned full salaries for the first six months.
Soon enough, their determination paid off, with returning customers spreading the word about their delicious flavors.
In late Jan 2025, they reinvested S$15,000 from the proceeds of the first store to open a second location at Block 216 Bedok Food Centre—just two months after their launch, and in the same hawker center where their parents run Lao Er.
In July 2025, they opened a third location at Punggol Coast Hawker Center in Punggol Digital District, funded by S$20,000. Since then it has been their most active domain.
Another surprise for the group was that curry puffs are not just a breakfast item. When they tested extended evening hours in Punggol, demand remained strong even before their original closing time of 3PM, prompting them to adjust operating hours accordingly.
“Whatever goes wrong, will go wrong”
But running a business is not without its problems.
In Mar 2025, Brandon and Chin Jie are called into custody at the same time—when Yuan Ming is in the middle of his exams. He ended up running the business mostly by himself for two weeks, working 14-hour days. Along the way, he had to deal with a failed delivery and a broken refrigerator that destroyed 400 lungs.
Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Now I know I have a plan for it.
Lim Yuan Ming
The team also decided to close its Changi Village outlet.
Despite being their place of origin, its distance from the center of Singapore made work challenging, and walking was hampered by nearby roads. In Jan 2026, they closed the shop and opened a new outlet in Haig Road Market & Food Center instead.
Lack of funds has also been a part of the group’s journey.
Beyond the sales centers, they brought What The Puff to GastroBeats, a food and music festival, in early 2025. It gave them room to experiment with flavors, introducing festival-only specialties like chilli crab, mentaiko tuna, and truffle mushrooms.
However, the pop-up came at a cost as they charged around S$8,000. Yuan Ming does not see you as a failure, however.
“It gave us an opportunity to see if the events are something we want to pursue,” he said. The experience also connected them to other entrepreneurs on their journey, providing an insight they would not have received from behind a salesperson’s counter.
45,000 fufu per month & counting
Recently, What The Puff made its first CBD appearance, expanding beyond the heartland in late May. Together, the brand is now featured at Hypha Provisions at Raffles Place MRT.
The most important operational milestone, however, came in December 2025, when What The Puff established a central kitchen: a 100 to 200 sqft space with four to five people to measure production.
Most of the puffs are now prepared there and distributed to roasters on site, with the Punggol site alone handling end production.
This increased capacity to approximately 1,500 puffs per day, which translates to approximately 40,000 to 45,000 puffs per month across all stores. At S$2 to S$2.50 per pup, it is not surprising that the product will hit S$500,000 in revenue by 2025.
However, the centralized kitchen also introduces new cost pressures, with labor coming up as a major expense. The team is now exploring the automation of certain parts of production, although Yuan Ming is careful not to lose what makes the product unique.
Currently, all puffs and fillings are still made from scratch.
The dough is kneaded the day before, then divided and rolled from 8AM until the afternoon. “The texture you get from making edges by hand is not easily replicated by machines,” says Yuan Ming. “That’s important to us.”
The speed of folding, at least, has improved greatly—from 30 to 45 seconds per suction in the early days to less than 20 seconds now.
What is Puff and ensures that nothing much is wasted. Unfried puffs are kept frozen until needed, so the team only fries what they expect to sell. For damaged or leftover stock, collaborate with the food redistribution platform Food Tool, where the excess is calculated at low prices for anyone who wants it.
10 stores in five years
For now, the trio prioritizes stability over speed. The team wants to strengthen production consistency, develop a menu, and solidify systems before moving forward.
They are targeting the West, North, and South of Singapore, as online orders are already coming from those regions, and a fourth location is planned for the second half of 2026. Their five-year goal is 10 stalls across the island.
Collaboration is also imminent, although Yuan Ming is waiting until production is stable enough to go ahead.
For anyone considering entering the retail space, his advice is to expect chaos, plan for it anyway, and never underestimate the toll of the environment.
“It’s hot, it’s greasy, and things are bound to go wrong,” she said. “But the government offers a lot of subsidies and grants to help people get in. If you want to try it, try it now—before the pressure to play it safe gets too high.”
- Read more about What The Puff here.
- Read more articles about Singapore businesses here.
Featured Image Credit: HungryGoWhere/ @springtomorrow via Instagram
