How Hockhua Tonic became a Singapore TCM giant

Your neighbourhood TCM shop is actually a S$150M empire

Most Singaporeans have walked past a Hockhua Tonic store without thinking twice. Its iconic red signage, the scent of dried herbs, and rows of grab-and-go herbal teas blend so seamlessly into Singapore’s heartland malls that the brand has become part of the landscape.

Which makes it easy to miss what’s actually going on: a S$150 million business with over 80 outlets across Singapore and Malaysia, a loyalty programme with over 480,000 registered members, and a supply chain that stretches from ginseng farms in Ontario, Canada, to bird’s nest operations in West Malaysia. 

What founder Chan Tiong Cheng started with his mother in 1986 as a small wholesale business importing American ginseng from Canada has since grown into Singapore’s largest traditional Chinese medicine retail chain. Today, Hockhua operates three manufacturing plants in Singapore and reports an annual turnover of S$150 million.

Here’s its story.

A mother, a son, and a sack of ginseng

The founding of Hockhua began in 1986, when Chan and his mother, Madam Lee Ang Cho, started importing American ginseng from Canada and selling it wholesale. Back then, Hockhua neither had a retail presence nor branding—just a wholesale company with a supply chain and a bet that Singapore’s Chinese community would keep wanting ginseng.

The mother-son duo was right.

In 1987, Chan brought in three partners and expanded the wholesale operation, setting up at Kampong Kranji. Demand for traditional Chinese health products was growing as Singapore’s middle class expanded and began spending on wellness.

By 1989, there was enough confidence to open the first physical retail outlet, Hockhua Ginseng Birdnest Trading Enterprise in Hougang.

The shop was popular enough to trigger several more openings in quick succession between 1990 and 1995. By 1992, the company had already begun describing itself as a “comprehensive traditional health food chain.” It claimed that revenue had tripled from S$2 million to S$6 million between 1990 and 1993.

Owning the supply chain

What distinguishes Hockhua’s growth from most Singapore retail stories is how much of it was vertical. Rather than simply opening more shops selling other people’s products, Chan kept bringing more of the supply chain in-house.

The process began in 1996 with the formation of SHW Trading Enterprise—later renamed Hockhua Tonic Pte Ltd—to handle direct imports. By cutting out intermediaries, the company lowered procurement costs, exercised tighter quality control, and kept retail prices competitive.

Over the next few years, Hockhua expanded that strategy further. By 2000, it had established six subsidiary companies specialising in different product categories, including ginseng, bird’s nest, Chinese herbs, agri-food, seafood, and traditional medicine.

The corporate structure that emerged looked very different from a typical retail chain. Under Hockhua Holdings, subsidiaries oversee cultivation, sourcing, processing, manufacturing and distribution, with the retail outlets serving as only the final touchpoint.

In many ways, Hockhua resembles a vertically integrated agricultural and manufacturing group that happens to sell through retail stores.

That integration stretches well beyond Singapore. The company says it cultivates its own ginseng through partner farms in Ontario, Canada, and Jilin Province, China. It has also operated its own bird’s nest farms in West Malaysia since 2009, while an Indonesian processing facility was added in 2018.

Its abalone is sourced from eight countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Chile. Meanwhile, more than 20 patented TCM products in capsule and powder form are manufactured across three Singapore plants spanning some 13,000 square metres—a sizeable manufacturing footprint by local standards.

Today, Hockhua carries over 1,000 products. Its flagship brands include Golden for ginseng, Golden Cow for bird’s nest, and Tiger King for abalone, each spanning multiple grades and price points, from everyday health supplements to premium festive gift sets.

Keeping customers coming back

Beyond sourcing and manufacturing, Hockhua also invested early in customer retention. In 1991, it became the first medical hall in Singapore to introduce a loyalty points programme—long before app-based rewards became commonplace.

Today, the programme has more than 480,000 registered members across Singapore and Malaysia.

The company also broadened its retail appeal beyond traditional Chinese medicine.

Since opening its first Oriental Herbal Tea outlet in 2000, Hockhua has sold freshly brewed herbal drinks alongside its core products. Priced from under S$2 and brewed daily using ingredients such as luohan fruit and chrysanthemum, the drinks offer a low-cost entry point for customers who might otherwise never step into a TCM shop.

By 2019, Hockhua operated 15 licensed herbal tea outlets under the Hockhua Herbal Tea and Oriental Herbal Tea brands.

While the company does not disclose revenue from the business separately, the tea counters likely play an important role in driving foot traffic and introducing new customers to its broader range of health products.

Crossing the S$100M mark

Hock Hua’s numbers tell a story of quiet, compounding growth over the years. 

What started as a S$2 million wholesale operation in 1990 had tripled to S$6 million by 1993, impressive for a business barely out of its first retail experiment. 

The real scale of what Hockhua had built became clearer over the following decade: by 2009, with 46 retail shops and 15 herbal tea stores across Singapore plus a handful of Malaysia outlets, revenue had reached S$83 million. 

It crossed S$100 million sometime around 2012, and according to Superbrands Volume 15, published in 2024, turnover stood at S$150 million in the year prior, making it one of the most resilient retail operations in Singapore’s wellness space. 

Going digital, going regional

In 2014, Hockhua launched its e-store, which eventually paved the way for further e-commerce expansion in 2018 across Qoo10, Lazada, RedMart, and Shopee. 

Expansion into neighbouring Malaysia began in 2007 with the first two outlets in Kuala Lumpur. A factory and warehouse were established in Malacca in 2015 to centralise product storage, processing and distribution to Malaysia outlets.

A China outlet opened in Fuzhou in 2016 and later relocated to a new shopping mall in Xiamen in 2019, a foray into the waters of the world’s largest TCM market, though the China presence has remained modest in Hockhua’s public accounts, except for a few processing plants like one in Gansu, China.

On the awards front, Hockhua has achieved Superbrands status every year from 2008 to 2024 and received a Silver Award from the Singapore Food Agency in 2018 for ten consecutive years of Grade A food hygiene. 

In 2019, it was recognised under the Singapore Quality Class for business excellence and nominated as a Singapore heritage brand. 

A heritage business

With its history, Hockhua occupies a significant position in Singapore’s commercial landscape as a homegrown brand selling traditional products to customers who remember their parents buying the same things, while simultaneously trying to stay relevant to a generation that approaches wellness very differently. 

Singapore’s broader wellness economy reached US$23.2 billion (S$29.7 billion) in 2024, ranking 37th globally and up from US$15 billion (S$19.2 billion) in 2021. Within this thriving sector, the specific local market for vitamins and health supplements was valued at approximately US$583 million (S$746.9 million) in 2024 and is projected to reach US$752 million (S$963.4 million) by 2029.

But whether that wave is carrying TCM along with it, or whether younger Singaporeans are reaching for collagen drinks instead of bird’s nest, is a harder question to answer.

What they do show is a business that has compounded steadily for nearly four decades, from bringing Canadian ginseng into Singapore to a S$150 million retail operation. In a retail environment that has seen far more famous names stumble, that is its own kind of achievement.

• Learn more about Hockhua Tonic here.
• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Capitaland