It’s most likely that you’ve eaten a pastry or cake made by Montreux Patisserie. The three-storey kitchen at Senoko Drive produces for Integrated Resorts (IR), luxury hotels, hospitals, schools, country clubs, pantries in corporate offices and restaurants. A total of 100 bakers and cooks ensure 258 different products are baked, assembled, packed and put into 10 delivery trucks that make their rounds three times a day. At the head of this well-oiled machine is Lee Chit Shung, managing director and secondgeneration business owner.
MODEST BEGINNINGS
Jovial and unassuming, Lee had wanted to be a doctor but eventually decided to join the family business after National Service. He remembers when his father, affectionately known as chef Lee Lay, opened a small three-man bakery at East Coast Road alongside his mother in 1995. The latter had spent most of his life working as a pastry chef in hotels, gone on to win awards and led the Singapore Pastry Team to victory in a competition in Lyon.
There, both struggled to make ends meet until they saw there was a demand for dessert and pastry. “Many F&B establishments started to outsource,” he quips. Turns out that was the right call to make as business picked up and the Patisserie moved into a 1,250 square feet factory just five years later. Located in the east, the larger space occupied four store units and housed a production team of 80 people. When the SARS outbreak happened in 2003, they were hit hard as a large part of their income came from supplying to hotels. It’s the reason why Lee now actively seeks for various ways to expand the business.
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