Food entrepreneur aims to be one-stop grocer for keto market

Profitable venture: Ketodiet became profitable within its first year and maintains six full time staff on its payroll.

IT may have been Google’s most-searched diet term last year, but the keto diet was far from mainstream when Kelantanese Adda Uwais adopted the eating plan in 2010.

Back then, keto-friendly foods were practically non-existent in Malaysia. Instead, Adda spent hours learning about the science behind the keto diet and started developing her own recipes.

While it was not part of her plan, these recipes became the foundation for EatSlim Lifestyle, a brand of low-carb food products that addresses the needs of keto diet practitioners.

EatSlim is not Adda’s first food venture. She has a degree in quantity surveying and worked in an architectural firm for a year, before deciding that her passion lay elsewhere. Making use of the cooking skills she picked up from her mother, she went on to set up a nasi kukus stall and sold cakes online.

Her journey with the new eating regime began after she experienced massive weight gain following a thyroid removal surgery. Desperate to avoid hormone therapy, she searched for alternative solutions and stumbled upon the keto diet, a high-fat, low-carb eating plan that works by depleting the body of glucose, forcing it to burn fat and produce an alternate source of fuel called ketones. She shed 25kg in three months.

While low-carb foods are no longer a novelty today, Adda notes that not many local entrepreneurs are producing them on an industrial scale like her. EatSlim has some 60 products under its portfolio to cater to its customers’ needs.

And judging by the company’s healthy revenues, customers are snapping them up.

Wide range: Adda saysEatSlim has some 60 products under its portfolio to cater to its customer's needs.

Early exposure

Like any millennial worth her salt, Adda was an active social media user and had diligently chronicled her dietary experiments.

It was then that one of her followers on social media reached out to her to ask if she could supply him with the same food that she ate. He had tried various weight loss programmes and was unsuccessful.

Well, here was an opportunity for her. She reckoned it was a simple matter of doubling the volume of whatever she was cooking for herself and agreed to provide the order.

“I charged him RM1,500 a month for three meals daily. It was good money, why not?”

Her client started losing weight. Elated, he shared the good news with his friends, who, in turn, brought Adda other customers.

Unfortunately, after just a few months, Adda had to discontinue her side hustle. A family crisis was brewing.

Her mother had developed diabetes-related complications and over the next few years, Adda began the gruelling routine of commuting weekly to the East Coast to accompany her mother on hospital visits while juggling her businesses in Kuala Lumpur.

Spending all that time in hospitals put Adda on an emotional roller-coaster.

“I could see that, like my mother, most of the patients suffered from chronic diseases that could be prevented by adopting a healthier lifestyle. Knowing what I do now about the dangers of sugar, how could I continue selling sugary desserts to my customers?” she says.

Although a tough choice to make, Adda finally closed down her nasi kukus and cake businesses. She was back down at square one.

While deciding on her next move, she enrolled in an international business course where she learned the importance of focussing on just one thing in order to sustain a long-term business.

“It hit me that I already had something unique that I was passionate about, which was my keto recipes. I also had one key advantage; nobody was doing it in Malaysia yet, at that time, ” she recalls.

Capitalising on demand: The keto diet trend and consumers’ preference for online delivery have helped the company to grow.

Then, Adda received an unexpected bonus. She had taken part in a contest and her keto recipes won her RM50,000 in prize money.

Armed with fresh capital and a renewed sense of hope, Adda took out the cooking equipment from her previous food business and set up Ketodiet Sifu Sdn Bhd in October 2017 to manufacture and distribute keto-friendly foods under the EatSlim Lifestyle brand.

“I started out with cha-cha sauce, bun bun, fluffy bun and tortilla wrap, then gradually increased my offerings as I gained better insight into what my customers want, ” she shares.

She continued to develop more recipes including Asian-inspired premix sauces, cooking condiments, and snack foods such as anchovy crisps, pavlovas, cupcakes and brownies, as well as superfoods and organic products sourced from other keto-friendly brands.

Adda’s intention is to create a one-stop grocer for her consumers.

“Most of the keto food producers in Malaysia have only a few products or focus on desserts. I knew the capability to offer time-crunched customers everything they need under one roof would give me a strong competitive advantage, ” she points out.

“So I developed premixes to cater to customers who prioritise convenience, particularly in developed countries. My goal is to break into the US market, where food trends like keto and gluten-free are booming because the country has one of the highest diabetes rates in the world, ” she adds.

Betting on online

EatSlim’s products are fully sold online on its website as well as online marketplaces. Part of the reason for adopting an online business model was simple economics.

“The supermarket game is different from online. Their payment terms to vendors is typically 90 days. How can small brands like us survive? With online, your customer pays first and only then you deliver. No risky transactions, ” she notes.

But Adda’s bigger motivation for focussing on e-commerce is her belief that it’s the future of the food industry.

“From years back, I already observed that people were getting too lazy to go to physical shops and they were not only buying cooked food from online platforms, but also everyday groceries.

“Look at how well Grab and Foodpanda are doing today. With online ordering, you can reach thousands of people at a time without having to make any additional investment in staff or infrastructure, ” she says.

The growing keto diet trend and consumers’ increasing preference for online delivery have worked out well for Adda’s venture.

In just slightly over two years, EatSlim has grown beyond her expectations. It became profitable within its first year of operation and maintains six full time staff on its payroll. If things work out as projected, the company’s revenue will cross RM300,000 in 2019, a two-fold increase from last year’s sales.

Much of Adda’s business wisdom is gained through learning from mistakes, but she has also invested considerable time and money educating herself about the art of running a business. Before setting up her nasi kukus stall, she paid thousands of ringgit to learn from other entrepreneurs about tried and tested ways to sustain a business.

“It’s not just about techniques or strategies but also about building up your semangat (spirit), which is key to an entrepreneur’s survival, ” she says.

She has also attended many classes on marketing and social media strategy and owns more business books than she can count.

“As an entrepreneur, you must be diligent at learning and upgrading yourself constantly.”

Adda is contented with how her venture has grown and believes EatSlim has a lot going for it in the future.

If there’s one thing missing from Adda’s wishlist, it’s the chance to share her success with her mother, who died last year. While the loss hit Adda hard, it also strengthened her resolve to make EatSlim work.

“When my mother was alive, she would tell the nurses that her daughter was in the business of helping people lead healthier lives. Knowing that she would be proud of me keeps me going, ” she says.