Starting with a humble beverage shop, a Taiwanese-American boba tea entrepreneur has transformed his business into a multimillion-dollar packaging giant that is publicly listed on the NASDAQ.
On Wednesday last week, Alan Yu (俞宗明) shared his success story when hosting a delegation of members from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles (TECO LA), the Taiwanese- American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Los Angeles (TACCLA) and media representatives.
The meeting was held at Yu’s 4,645m2 facility in Chino, California, which serves as the principal executive and administrative headquarters for his companies Karat Packaging Inc and Lollicup USA Inc, as well as a manufacturing plant for select products.
Photo: CNA
Karat is a publicly listed company valued at approximately US$368 million.
However, Yu came from humble beginnings. His first foray into the food and beverage industry began in 2000, when he opened his first boba tea shop in San Gabriel, California, with his partner, Marvin Cheng (鄭光宏).
Soon, Lollicup USA Inc was founded, focusing initially on the establishment, franchising and licensing of boba tea stores throughout the US.
Yu said that he was the person who coined “boba tea,” the English term used to describe the internationally popular Taiwanese beverage.
Yu said that instead of using “pearls,” the term commonly used in Taiwan to describe the beverage’s tapioca balls, he settled on “boba,” an older Mandarin slang used to describe the voluptuous figure of a woman, to associate the snack with the supersizing of day-to-day items commonly practiced in the US.
The operation quickly went from a single venue to more than 60 stores in 2006.
To guarantee quality control at all of their stores, the company in 2004 expanded its focus to include the distribution of supplies for the entire boba tea industry in the US.
In 2014, the firm began distributing and manufacturing products under a new brand, Karat, because of growing demand for their packaging products in the country’s food service industry.
Karat was eventually incorporated in September 2018 as the holding company for Lollicup.
Asked about the key to his success, Yu said that it is always important to keep risk diversification in mind while growing a company.
Dedication, adaptability and perseverance in problem-solving also helped the company grow, he said.
Echoing Yu’s statement, Lollicup and Karat’s chief operation officer, Joanne Wang (王姿容), used examples of how the company has spread its focus over the past 20 years, all the while coming face-to-face with unforeseen obstacles such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There are a lot of people out there in the business of boba tea products, but we have been able to achieve what others could not, such as decreasing packaging volume to lower logistics expenses, and selecting the right kind of plastic to minimize breakage during transport,” Wang said.
Liu Lun-cheng (劉倫正), who heads TECO LA’s Economic Division, told the meeting that Yu’s ability to transform a small beverage shop into a NASDAQ-listed company fully encompassed and represented the hardworking spirit of Taiwanese.
TACCLA president Lisa Liu (劉雅薇) said that it was an impressive feat for a Taiwanese-American company to penetrate the mainstream US market, gaining clients from popular food chains such as TGI Fridays.
Today, Lollicup reaches across six US states, with distribution centers, supply stores, manufacturing plants and warehouses in Hawaii, Washington, California, Texas, South Carolina and New Jersey.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has secured three construction permits for its plan to build a state-of-the-art A14 wafer fab in Taichung, and is likely to start construction soon, the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau said yesterday. Speaking with CNA, Wang Chun-chieh (王俊傑), deputy director general of the science park bureau, said the world’s largest contract chipmaker has received three construction permits — one to build a fab to roll out sophisticated chips, another to build a central utility plant to provide water and electricity for the facility and the other to build three office buildings. With the three permits, TSMC
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
RSS