Cream of the Crop

John-Hans Oei shares how Cultiveat is back on track for growth post-pandemic

- Aaron Pereira

For those not in the know, Cultiveat was among the pioneers to practise sustainable farming locally. Growing select crops indoors, they manage to keep produce pesticide-free and yield more within the same amount of land as compared to conventional farming.

“Post-lockdown, what we’re trying to do now is to play catch-up; there were a lot of plans in the pipeline— most of which involve expanding our presence,” shares John-Hans Oei, the CEO and co-founder of the business, who regards himself as a humble farmer.

The pandemic slowed down Cultiveat’s plans for expansion, as restaurants and clients reduced their demand for Cultiveat’s products. Coupled with the fact that movement control orders were in place, so everything was restricted.

However, the lull allowed Oei and team to look internally and fine-tune processes. “Since we couldn’t expand just yet, we did some R&D to become more efficient and effective. We don’t want to stagnate, so we studied the market and started to grow different crops using different technologies,” he says.