Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐), a world famous dumpling house based in Taipei, reported on Monday that its profits so far this year had fallen by almost 30 percent compared with the same period last year, and that it had suspended plans to open branches in the Philippines and Thailand as a result of the economic downturn.
Din Tai Fung, which started as an innocuous-looking shop at the intersection of Yongkang Street and Xinyi Road, specializes in small, steamed pork dumplings called xiaolongbao, but its chicken soup and other dumplings are also favorites among visitors from all over the world.
The restaurant is not only a common stop for international tourists eager to sample the treats, but is also a popular gourmet eatery among Taipei residents.
It is particularly popular among Japanese tourists, including celebrities. When Japanese pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki was in Taiwan to hold a concert at Taipei Arena last year, she invited one of Din Tai Fung’s chefs to make dumplings on the spot before the show.
Another Japanese singer, Kosuke Atari, who featured in the film Cape No. 7, also mentioned his love of Din Tai Fung’s dumplings at a promotional event for the film earlier this year.
Din Tai Fung was rated as one of the top 10 gourmet restaurants in the world by the New York Times in 1993 and has branches in many countries.
It also dispatched chefs to Britain and France last year to demonstrate their culinary skills.
Over the years, the long lines of customers waiting outside the dumpling house to try the xiaolongbao and other delicacies has become a common sight, but even this Taipei institution is feeling the pinch of a weak global economy.
“The number of customers has actually dwindled,” said Hu Huei-yi (胡慧宜), head of the restaurant’s public relations section.
“Usually the restaurant is full of customers all the time, but now there’s a noticeable difference between peak and off-peak periods,” Hu said.
But despite the drop in profits, Din Tai Fung is still a profitable enterprise, Hu said.
Hu attributed the lower earnings mainly to a decline in the number of local customers, adding that statistics had shown no significant decrease in the number of tourists from other countries.
She said the restaurant’s economic resilience was a result of its diversification of services, which now includes home delivery and take-out, and its participation in food fairs and exhibitions.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
A man walks past real-estate advertisements outside a house in Taipei yesterday. The central bank yesterday said it plans to establish an “Inflation-at-Risk” gauge as a supplementary tool for observing inflation, as policymakers express wish to communicate more effectively with the public when making inflation forecasts.
ABOVE LEGAL REQUIREMENT: The Ministry of Economic Affairs is prepared if LNG supply is disrupted, with more than the legal requirement of 11 days of inventory Taiwan has largely secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies through May and arranged about half of June’s supply, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Since the Middle East conflict began on Feb. 28, Taiwan’s LNG inventories have remained more than 12 days, exceeding the legal requirement of 11 days, indicating no major supply concerns for domestic gas and electricity, Kung said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. The ministry aims to increase the figure to 14 days by the end of next year, he said. While one or two LNG or crude oil shipments for May
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
RSS