Deelish Brands Pte Ltd captures Executive of the Year for Food & Beverage at SBR Management Excellence Awards 2019

CEO and founder Moe Ibrahim is taking halal cuisine where no one has gone before.

When Moe Ibrahim founded Deelish Brands Pte Ltd. in 2017, he wanted to adapt American fast-casual restaurant brands for halal consumers in Southeast Asia.

As a serial entrepreneur, Mr Ibrahim observed a market gap in Singapore’s food and beverage sector. He decided to address the lack of trendy fast-casual restaurants and expanded the options for the rapidly growing halal consumer base, launching Fatburger (FatburgerSG.com), the first fast-casual, halal-only eatery and leading fast-casual burger chain in Singapore.

After his pioneer Fatburger project, Mr Ibrahim set the goal of creating a wide range franchise and in-house brands.

Together with his team, Deelish Brands is in the process of introducing a new brand called Blimpie (BlimpieSG.com).

Mr Ibrahim went through an intensive learning process to establish Deelish Brands.

To familiarise himself with the US restaurant business, he spent several months in Los Angeles, California, where he worked at a newly launched store for a couple of months, training staff, preparing food and cooking on grills, managing payrolls, working as a cashier, and communicating with customers. These were the skills he brought back to Singapore when he gathered and trained his homegrown team, keeping in mind the need for authentic Singapore versions of the adapted brands.

His determination and hard work definitely paid off, as exhibited by the company’s financial indicators.

Since operations started in 2018, Deelish has become a trend-setting enterprise with millions worth of revenue. The company was cashflow positive within a short period of two months.

Supported by a 100% local supply chain and a strong social media campaign, Deelish Brands have captivated consumers in Singapore’s competitive F&B industry. Given the leading position of Deelish in the fast-casual burger market, Mr Ibrahim affirms that the key to sustainable competitive advantage is speedy innovation rather than past success.

In 2020, the company intends to launch a trendy fast-casual pizza brand, demonstrating the momentum of its innovations.

Furthermore, Deelish uses a cloud-based point-of-sale system that seamlessly integrates with other cloud-based functions such as purchasing and accounting. These features all integrated with a proprietary system to manage human resources, recruitment, and customer management.

Deelish recently implemented the cloud kitchen at Fatburger Tampines (at Tampines Food Co.), making them one of the pioneers of this restaurant practice in Singapore. Mr Ibrahim values the role of technology in successful business and plans to introduce its own technological solutions to the F&B industry in the years ahead.

At present, challenges remain in manpower and scheduling, which Deelish aims to solve through an innovative solution with potential for industry-wide adoption.
Mr Ibrahim’s pragmatic strategy has been developed in his previous professional experience. While managing a 473-room luxury resort, he launched new brands that that successfully attracted bookings and increased business productivity.

With a clear vision for Deelish Brands, he now looks forward to greater opportunities in Singapore’s consistently thriving F&B industry. Undoubtedly, he is leading Deelish towards its goal of becoming the premier restaurant franchise group in Southeast Asia.

The Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards was held on 26 November 2019 at the Conrad Centennial Singapore.

The 2019 nominees were judged by a panel consisting of Henry Tan, Managing Director at NEXIA TS; David Chew, Executive Director, Risk Advisory at Deloitte Southeast Asia; Lim Wei Wei, Partner and Practice Leader, Governance and Risk at Baker Tilly TFW; Pardeep Singh Khosa, Director of Dispute Resolution at Drew & Napier; and Yang Eu Jin, Partner and Co Head of Capital Markets Practice at RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP.

If you would like to join the 2020 awards and be awarded as one of the most outstanding management executives of Singapore, please email [email protected]