When you put yeast in a sugar solution, the results are rather straightforward. The yeast munches on the sugar in the absence of oxygen and employs enzymes to convert sucrose into basic sugars. Those are subsequently converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide. One common method is to combine table sugar and water to achieve a 20% concentration before adding around 2 grams of baker’s yeast per liter. Before you know it, bubbles appear as CO2 escapes from the airlock. After a week or two, the liquid contains approximately 10-15% ethanol. It turns out that approximately 54% of the sugar you started with is converted into ethanol, while the remainder is expelled as CO2.

However, the concentration levels are insufficient to keep an engine running reliably. To get it to separate from the water it is combined with, we must distill it. The brew is poured into an 8-liter pressure cooker, which resembles a large saucepan with a pipe coming out of it. We just heat it on an electric heating plate, but it does not boil. The main difference is that ethanol vapor rises before water because it boils at 78 degrees and water boils at 100 degrees. To condense it, we use a long copper conduit lined with mesh and allow it to run back around every now and again. Each time, the percentage of ethanol in the ascending vapor increases somewhat. The system’s final step cools the vapor into a liquid, resulting in a hydrometer reading of 93 to 95% ethanol, and a simple flame test reveals that it’s burning properly, with no residue.

We need to make a few tweaks before the engine will operate on this stuff. The engine used is a 212cc four-stroke with a carburetor, so we’ll need to increase the main jet size by around 20% to accommodate the more concentrated ethanol combination. The rubber seals and gasoline lines will need to be replaced with Teflon and metal ones that can withstand ethanol. Once everything has been replaced, the engine will start on the concentrated ethanol and happily spin the crank, however we may need to adjust the pilot circuit if it is not idling properly.

Hyperspace Pirate began by obtaining an old brushless motor that had originally come with an electric skateboard, which it then mounted onto the crankshaft using some adapters and a scrap of metal to secure it. As the crank turns, the motor starts spinning and produces a three-phase alternating current via electromagnetic induction. Next, a bridge rectifier is utilized to convert the AC to the DC required, which is 12-18 volts. Under normal load, the Hyperspace Pirates system generates 780-900 watts, which is quite astounding. If you add a capacitor to smooth out the voltage and an inverter to make it more like standard residential power, you’ll have 120 volts.
[Source]

How the tech giant’s “Rural Ecosystem” initiative is bridging the digital divide across 20+ nations with green connectivity and inclusive services

ZTE has received two prestigious Digital with Purpose (DWP) honors – the Smart Cities Award and the Global Award – for its Signal Reach Program in Africa at the DWP Global Summit Shenzhen 2026.

The awards span three core categories: Climate, Smart Cities, and Health & Wellbeing. In addition, the event presents the coveted Global Award as its supreme annual honor. Dubbed the Award of the Awards, it is the year’s sole top overall prize, selected from outstanding entries across all category divisions.

The Signal Reach Program in Africa distinguished itself among a competitive field of global submissions for its innovation, impact, and alignment with the values of purposeful digital transformation. These honors underscore ZTE’s large-scale efforts to drive digital transformation in remote regions and highlight its significant contribution to advancing global sustainable development and closing the digital divide.

Hosted by the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), the summit brought together global leaders from government, business, academia, and research to explore the pathway of digital technology for good. As one of the most influential international awards under the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the DWP Global Awards celebrate exemplary global projects that leverage digital technology innovation to promote social equity, environmental sustainability, and inclusive growth.

Chen Zhiping, Chief International Ecosystem Representative of ZTE, accepted the awards on behalf of the company, underscoring ZTE’s commitment to advancing global sustainable development and digital inclusion.

She emphasized that the Signal Reach Program in Africa is not merely a communication technology initiative, but a locally rooted social responsibility project. Winning the two awards is a strong recognition of ZTE’s long-standing commitment to the Tech for Good principle. ZTE will continue to leverage its technological strengths and collaborate with customers, NGOs, and partners across local communities to contribute to the realization of the UN SDGs.

Addressing the pain point of weak infrastructure in remote and rural areas of Africa, the program is driven by the core philosophy of “ubiquitous connectivity, green energy, and inclusive sharing”. It features the innovative “Rural Ecosystem” end-to-end solution, integrating “EcoSite + EcoEnergy + EcoDevice” to build a comprehensive digital ecosystem covering infrastructure, energy supply, and terminal access.

The Rural EcoSite solution utilizes highly integrated equipment and various backhaul options, supporting flexible evolution from 2G/3G/4G to 5G. During construction, the innovative Lego-type modular tower drastically simplifies and accelerates deployment, shortening the average construction time by over 60% and reducing overall construction costs by 70%. To overcome the bottleneck of a lack of grid power in some remote areas, the Rural EcoEnergy solution provides a 100% solar-powered system equipped with high-efficiency PV panels and smart lithium batteries, managed by the iEnergy platform to realize dynamic load adjustment and remote monitoring. In actual deployments, some sites can even provide electricity for local villagers. For operation and maintenance (O&M), the solution supports end-to-end network management, with remote O&M simplifying processes and improving maintainability. The Rural EcoDevice solution delivers cost-effective smartphones, MiFi, and CPE terminal devices tailored for the African market, significantly lowering the barrier to digital access. Coupled with customized low-tariff data packages and digital skills training provided by operators, this solution successfully bridges the “last mile” of digital services.

To date, the program has been deployed at scale in more than 20 African countries, including Liberia, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Algeria, South Africa, and Egypt. In Liberia, Orange Liberia and ZTE have delivered inclusive digital, financial, and energy services to over one million users in more than 200 low-density rural communities. In Ethiopia, Ethio Telecom and ZTE have brought stable network services to over 100 low-density areas, fostering the wide application of digital technologies in livelihood sectors such as electronic payments, remote education, and environmental protection. In the central-southern and eastern regions of Cameroon, the large-scale deployment of rural base stations and a 360-kilometer backbone microwave link has built a systematic rural communication reinforcement network, significantly enhancing mobile coverage density and quality to serve nearly 15 million people. In Egypt, high-speed broadband networks have been built for over 1,500 villages, covering nearly 10 million people. These achievements have not only realized extensive coverage of communication infrastructure but also effectively driven the inclusive development of digital technology in livelihood sectors.

During the summit, Chen Zhiping joined the roundtable forum “Digital – The Backbone for a Sustainable Future”, engaging with global leaders in digital sustainability. Drawing on ZTE’s extensive practices in global ICT infrastructure development, she shared insights on how digital technologies can provide a solid foundation for sustainable development worldwide.

Chen Zhiping highlighted, “Sustainable development is not only about carbon reduction, but more importantly about ensuring universal access to digital opportunities. Affordable, green, and inclusive digital infrastructure is the cornerstone of a sustainable future”. She also emphasized ZTE’s commitment to open collaboration, noting that the company actively shares its experiences while advancing its own digital and sustainable transformation, and expressed ZTE’s readiness to work with global enterprises and international organizations to co-create a digital-for-purpose ecosystem.

Guided by its people-centric philosophy, ZTE is dedicated to ensuring that people across different regions enjoy equal communication rights and digital opportunities. Moving forward, ZTE will continue to deepen its commitment to green communications, digital inclusion, and low–carbon operations, driving the ICT industry toward greater inclusiveness, intelligence, and sustainability, and jointly building a brighter digital future.

Contributed by ZTE.

CBC plans to raise its annual technology spending to more than $771mn, according to Bloomberg, as Singapore’s second-largest lender leans harder into AI and digital banking. The increase marks one of the first strategic signals from Tan Teck Long, who took over as group chief executive on 1 January 2026.

Tan succeeded Helen Wong, who retired at the end of 2025 after steering the bank through an earlier phase of digital investment.

The reported figure of roughly $771mn sits close to the S$1bn mark in local currency terms, a threshold OCBC has flagged in various technology commitments over recent years.

The bank has said it will use 2026 to embed AI, digital and data more deeply across customer journeys, according to its 2025 annual report.

The stated aim is to build scale, personalise services and wring out cost efficiencies, the familiar trio of justifications for a rising bank technology bill.

Around three in five of OCBC’s employees have taken part in AI, digital or data training over the past three years, the bank has said.

That workforce push matters because the spending is not only about systems. It reflects a bet that staff across the bank can put AI tools to work rather than leaving them to a central team.

OCBC has framed its ambitions around AI, digital and data as a single stack rather than three separate projects.

The bank has spent recent years modernising a digital core, an unglamorous but expensive foundation for the customer-facing features it now wants to layer on top.

Tan has struck a measured tone on the outlook. For 2026 he expects total income to be stable to growing. Against that backdrop, a higher technology budget reads as a deliberate reallocation rather than a spend fuelled by soaring revenue.

OCBC has been building the case for years. It committed about S$500mn to an innovation hub in Singapore’s Punggol Digital District, a site due for completion in 2027.

The bank has also pushed into newer plumbing, recently backing a $1bn blockchain-powered US commercial paper programme. Those moves fit a regional pattern in which Singapore’s big banks compete as much on technology stacks as on branch networks.

DBS and UOB, OCBC’s local rivals, have made their own loud commitments to AI and digital infrastructure in recent years. In that contest, standing still is not really an option, and a bigger technology bill is the price of staying in the race.

The strategy is not without friction. Rising technology costs squeeze the cost-to-income ratio precisely when margins across Asian banking are under pressure.

Tan inherits that tension alongside the scrutiny of OCBC’s influential long-term shareholders, a dynamic that will shape how freely he can spend. Any sustained rise in the technology bill will have to be squared with the bank’s reputation for cost discipline.

The broader industry logic is hard to argue with. McKinsey has estimated that generative AI could add $200bn to $340bn a year in value across banking, a prize lenders are racing to capture.

OCBC is not alone in leaning on the technology. Rival HSBC found that AI still trails human wealth managers when the money actually moves, a reminder that the returns are uneven.

Even so, the direction of travel is set, from banks probing the trust gap with big tech to Singapore’s state-level push on blockchain innovation and adoption. For OCBC, the higher budget is the clearest sign yet that its new chief intends to keep pace rather than pull back.

The test will be whether more than $771mn a year buys measurable gains in productivity and customer growth, or simply keeps the bank running to stand still.

I’m enjoying the cultural references in all episode titles of Rick and Morty season 9, but this week’s, Mortgully: The Last Rickforest, sounds like a complete enigma.

All we have to go on is one short line: “Rick and Morty gotta evolve, broh.” Take into account eight and a half seasons of absolute chaos, and this could literally mean anything.

OPINION Bosses say working from the office is all about productivity, but the truth is it’s just a power trip driven by fear and narcissism.

Executives who insist on people working from the office like to say it’s all about productivity, culture, collaboration, and mentoring. Pull the other one; it has bells on.

When executives demand that we “return to the office,” they usually lean on a familiar set of talking points: remote work hurts productivity, people collaborate better in the office, and corporate culture only happens in the office. If you look closer, you’ll see it’s all malarkey.

Recent research by Professor Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and two of his grad students found that one reason some bosses resist remote work may be a desire to preserve authority and status. Or, as the paper title so neatly puts it, “Worship me at the office altar: Why narcissistic leaders resist remote work.”

Over the decades, I’ve met and covered many top leaders, especially in tech, and I’ve found that all too many of them have narcissistic tendencies.

Now, thanks to this study, I see this isn’t just my experience. The paper is based on three studies that included Fortune 500 leaders. The researchers found: “Because in-person work offers richer channels for controlling and commanding reverence from employees, in their pursuit of authority and admiration, narcissists are likely to resist remote work.”

These managers argue that spontaneous hallway chats, whiteboard sessions, and faster decision cycles require colocation, especially for teams used to in‑person workflows. They insist that company culture only happens in the office and that loyalty, engagement, and shared identity are impossible to sustain remotely.

They also frequently say juniors cannot be effectively trained without being in the office near seniors to absorb knowledge and norms. In my experience, leaders who teach are vanishingly rare. 

Companies talk a good game. The reality is something else. According to Gallup’s latest American Job Quality Study, only 28 percent of workers get any mentoring. Even if you consider that a somewhat successful number, a closer look reveals that much of this mentoring consisted of a few early meetings, followed by the mentor putting off the junior employee as “real work” got in the way. Mentoring is a good idea, but without follow-through, it’s a waste of time.

The main reason self-absorbed bosses like to give is that remote work is less productive. For instance, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, has long argued that remote work does not work well for people who want to “hustle” and advance. David Solomon, Goldman Sachs’ CEO, famously called remote work an “aberration” that the firm would “correct as quickly as possible.” 

You’ll find this attitude in tech companies as well. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, for example, said in 2024 that Google was losing the AI race because “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. And the reason startups work is that people work like hell. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is… you’re not going to let people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete against the other startups.”

Schmidt later rowed back on that opinion, admitting his “error” amid something of a backlash. 

I am so sick of that “startup” BS. Google, AWS, Microsoft, Meta, IBM, and all the rest that like to say they’re rebuilding a startup work-from-the-office culture, are full of crap. Multiple billion-dollar companies are promising today’s workers a shot at making millions from an IPO. They’re working for a paycheck. Oh, and today, Google looks to be just fine in the AI race.

Ego-driven management also relies on the old factory mentality that holds that the best workers are the ones who arrive early, work late, and are seen hustling by the bosses. Putting in 80-hour workweeks may be necessary at a startup, but in most businesses, that’s as stupid as measuring programmers’ productivity by lines of code or, more recently, by how many AI tokens they use.

The simple truth is that, except for cherry-picked studies, such as the WFH Research’s report, which found that fully remote work is associated with roughly 10 to 20 percent lower productivity, most studies find that people who work from home are happier and tend to be as productive, if not more so, than those stuck in the office. 

Staff forced to work from the office don’t even make their employers more profitable. 

The bottom line is that many people love working from home – I’m one of them – and bosses who insist you must work from the office tend to be narcissistic jerks.

If you have bosses like that and you’re a worker bee, I encourage you to look for another, more remote-friendly employer. If you’re in charge of a company and you have middle managers like that, I encourage you to look to AI to replace them.

Yeah, I said it. These days, another reason such managers may want to keep people under their thumb is they know that while AI can’t replace good managers, most managers can be dumped. Many of them are scared to death that someone will realize they’re just messengers and meeting‑makers who contribute nothing to the company’s bottom line. Worse still, from where they sit, they fear, with reason, that AI-driven services such as Jira, Asana AI, and ServiceNow can replace them in a heartbeat. 

I think that’s a fine fate for narcissistic bosses. Fire them all and let unemployment sort them out!  ®

Apple chief executive Tim Cook and the European Union’s technology chief spoke by video call on Monday, and both sides came away describing the exchange as “constructive”. That word is doing a lot of work.

Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, who oversees the bloc’s digital rulebook, held the meeting with Cook on 30 June. An EU spokesperson said the two had a “constructive exchange on topics of common interest, on which the work continues”.

Neither side detailed what was agreed, and the language suggests very little was.

The subject that brought them to the same screen is Siri AI, Apple’s rebuilt voice assistant, and whether it can launch in Europe without breaching the Digital Markets Act. Apple has already confirmed the feature will not ship on iPhone or iPad in the EU when iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 arrive later this year.

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That decision, first reported in June, left European users without the assistant on the two devices they use most.

Apple frames the delay as the Commission’s doing. It says regulators rejected every proposal it put forward over several months to bring Siri AI to Europe while safely supporting rival assistants.

The Commission tells the story differently, arguing Apple has been unable to build interoperability that meets the bloc’s privacy and security standards.

Both framings can be true at once, which is part of why the deadlock has proved so hard to break.

At the heart of the dispute is how far the DMA’s interoperability rules reach. Apple argues the Commission’s reading would force it to hand any third-party assistant the same deep access Siri AI enjoys, including the ability to read and send messages, make purchases, and act across installed apps.

The company says stripping out those permissions for rivals would leave users exposed, and that the Commission has not accepted its safeguards. Brussels sees that access as exactly the point of a law designed to prise open gatekeeper platforms.

The restriction applies only to iOS and iPadOS, the two systems the DMA has formally designated. EU users will still get Siri AI on macOS 27, visionOS 27, and watchOS 27. Monday’s call did not change that.

Apple has not committed to a timeline for bringing the assistant to European iPhones, and the Commission has not signalled any softening of its position. The meeting, on the public record at least, produced an agreement to keep talking.

The timing carries its own weight. Cook is preparing to step down as Apple’s chief executive, with hardware boss John Ternus expected to take over, and much of Cook’s remaining value to the company has centred on his role as its senior government liaison.

A cordial sign-off with Brussels fits that brief. The dispute also arrives as the Commission tightens its grip more broadly, having moved to force Google to open Android to rival assistants under the same law. Apple is not being singled out, even if it feels that way in Cupertino.

The wider relationship is anything but warm. The Commission has fined Apple €500m over App Store steering rules, and the company remains under scrutiny across several DMA workstreams.

Against that backdrop, a single video call reads less as a breakthrough than as both sides keeping a difficult channel open.

What Monday did not deliver was any substance a European iPhone owner could use. Siri AI remains unavailable on the devices most people in the bloc actually carry, and the two parties have committed only to further conversation.

Whether the next round produces more than an adjective remains to be seen. For now, the assistant stays on the far side of a regulatory line neither Apple nor Brussels seems ready to redraw, and the “constructive” label sits over a standoff that has not moved.

Upon completion of the deal, the French energy services giant will combine Cognite with its own industrial software business, Aveva.

Schneider Electric has agreed to acquire industrial data and AI software company Cognite in an all-cash transaction worth $3.1bn.

Upon completion of the deal – which will see Schneider acquire 100pc of Cognite’s share capital – the French energy services giant will combine Cognite with its own industrial software business, Aveva.

Specifically, Schneider plans to integrate Cognite’s capabilities into Connect, Aveva’s cloud-based industrial intelligence platform, which uses a suite of shared software services to “achieve rapid and reliable integration” of industrial data, models, applications, and AI and analytics.

Cognite, founded in 2016 by Geir Engdahl, John Markus Lervik and Stein Danielsen, specialises in industrial software to improve production efficiency in areas such as energy and process manufacturing, among others. Last year, the company’s annual revenue exceeded $170m.

Originally headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Cognite – which currently employs more than 800 people globally – moved its HQ to Arizona in the US in 2025.

“Cognite has built something rare, a truly industrial-grade AI platform that turns the complexity of operational data into a competitive advantage,” said Schneider Electric CEO Olivier Blum.

“By bringing Cognite into Schneider Electric and AVEVA, we unite the world’s most comprehensive energy management and automation infrastructure with the software and AI capabilities to make it natively intelligent.”

The acquisition is expected to be completed “in the coming quarters”, according to Cognite, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Schneider’s acquisition of Cognite comes amid an increased focus on industrial AI in Europe.

In April, Siemens CEO Roland Busch and German chancellor Friedrich Merz both called for eased EU regulations on industrial AI.

In a speech at the Hannover Messe trade fair, Merz warned that if Europe is to boost productivity, industrial AI will need more regulatory freedom than, for example, consumer AI.

“I will ​push to ease the regulatory burden ⁠in the EU on AI and, ​where possible, to exempt industrial AI ​from the current regulatory straitjacket that is too tight for AI within the European Union,” he said at the time.

Meanwhile, Busch warned in an interview at the event that Siemens would prioritise investments in the US and China if the EU did not lighten its regulations in a field he said is already subject to sector-specific regulations.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

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⁠⁠This couple couldn’t find good Greek yoghurt in S’pore, so they built a factory from scratch

Most yoghurt consumed in Singapore has travelled thousands of kilometres before it reaches the fridge.

It typically starts at a dairy farm in Europe, Australia, or the United States, before being processed, packaged, shipped across oceans, and stocked on supermarket shelves weeks later.

Singaporean Haanee Tyebally and her American husband and co-founder, Braedan Tegenfeldt, both 36, wanted to change that. The result is Annie’s All Natural, which claims to be Singapore’s first commercial producer of Greek yoghurt and cultured creams, made in a 2,000 sq ft factory in Mandai.

We spoke with Haanee about how she and Braedan—both with backgrounds in international development and no prior experience in food science, dairy, or manufacturing—built the factory from the ground up and a supply chain that now serves some of the country’s most prestigious hotels.

A family recipe

Annie’s story began not in Singapore, but in Yangon, Myanmar, where the couple grew up and built their lives together.

Braedan founded the business in 2014 after spotting a gap in the market. His mother had begun making Greek yoghurt at home after a holiday in Greece, recreating a staple of his American upbringing in Myanmar.

At the time, the country was seeing an influx of returning nationals and expatriates, but good-quality Greek yoghurt was virtually impossible to find. Seeing the opportunity, Braedan decided to turn the family recipe into a business.

Alongside his full-time job, Braedan started producing artisanal Greek yoghurt out of his parents’ garage, made in small batches and entirely by hand. Gradually, the business grew steadily from supplying small luxury hotels such as Belmond’s Governor’s Residence to being stocked at Myanmar’s largest grocery stores.

Haanee, who was working in Myanmar at the time for an NGO focused on family planning and women’s health, wasn’t involved in the business then. However, she later joined as his co-founder when the pair eventually moved to Singapore in 2020.

During the circuit breaker, the couple watched supermarket shelves empty as supply chains strained, and found nothing locally made that matched the quality of the Greek yoghurt they’d been eating and producing in Myanmar.

We didn’t really see anything that was comparable that was available in Singapore—something made either locally or within our region, something high quality, made of really good milk.

Haanee Tyebally

The same gap Braedan had spotted years earlier in Myanmar had emerged again, this time in Singapore.
That convinced the couple to make a bold move: build a production facility from scratch and establish a new life in Singapore.

From July 2021 to early 2023, the couple spent nearly two years building the facility from the ground up. They commissioned custom machinery from Italy, installed cold rooms, fitted out a food-grade processing plant, and ran batch after batch through R&D until they were satisfied with the final product.

The investment came close to six figures—a scale that was far beyond anything they had undertaken in Yangon.

But what makes Annie’s different?

The answer lies in almost every step of its production process.

Firstly, it’s the brand’s flavours. Annie’s sources grass-fed, free-range milk from New Zealand, specifically from a dairy processor powered by geothermal energy—one of the few in the world to run on a renewable energy source.

According to Haanee, sourcing milk from Southeast Asia wasn’t a serious option because the region’s tropical climate isn’t well suited for dairy cows. She also believes grass-fed milk offers a better micronutrient profile while reflecting higher animal welfare standards.

The brand is equally intentional about its flavours. Rather than sticking to the usual fruit varieties, Annie’s offers six options: plain, vanilla bean, passionfruit, ginger, coffee, and its newest flavour, raspberry.

The biggest difference, however, is how the yoghurt is made.

While many products labelled “Greek yoghurt” achieve their thick texture through mechanised straining or added milk proteins and solids, Annie’s follows the traditional method. After the milk is cultured, the yoghurt is transferred into large cloth bags and left to strain naturally for 14 to 16 hours.

According to Haanee, this slow process naturally concentrates the yoghurt’s proteins, fats, and flavour, creating a dense, creamy texture without thickeners, stabilisers, emulsifiers, or other unnecessary additives.

We really want consumers to have the experience of eating a super minimal product that’s made in a way that takes time, effort, intention, and care.

Haanee Tyebally

Building a client base from scratch

When Annie’s officially launched in Singapore in 2023, it had no distribution network, no established connections in Singapore’s F&B industry, and no existing retail relationships. What they had was yoghurt they believed in.

Their first strategy was to target the hospitality sector.

Hotels, they reasoned, consumed large volumes of yoghurt on breakfast buffets, had stringent food safety standards that played to their strengths, and had procurement teams who could evaluate products on merit. Getting through those doors required a lot of cold emails and door-knocking, but it eventually paid off.

Today, Annie’s supplies an impressive roster of properties: Shangri-La on Orange Grove Road, Fullerton Hotel and Fullerton Bay Hotel, Sofitel City Centre, JW Marriott South Beach, W Hotel in Sentosa, and multiple Resorts World properties, including the newly opened Lis Hotel. Hotels and restaurants now account for the bulk of the company’s sales.

Beyond Greek yoghurt, Annie’s also produces sour cream, crème fraîche, and labneh—a lightly salted yoghurt cheese—with culturing times of between 24 and 40 hours to meet the needs of its hospitality and foodservice clients.

On the retail front, Annie’s has been stocked at Little Farms since shortly after launch, a partnership Haanee shared was built on shared values around clean ingredients and transparent sourcing. The brand has also expanded online through RedMart, with each 120g tub retailing for S$4.20.

For now, though, major supermarket chains still remain out of reach.

High listing fees, upfront production costs, and long payment cycles pose significant barriers for a small producer, though Haanee hopes Annie’s will eventually make its way onto mainstream supermarket shelves so more Singaporeans can access its products.

A growing market

Today, Annie’s produces more than 4,000kg of Greek yoghurt each month, processing over 8,000 litres of milk.

Haanee attributes that growth to changing consumer habits. Once a niche product, Greek yoghurt has become increasingly mainstream as social media, greater nutrition awareness, and more well-travelled consumers drive demand for high-protein foods.

She also noted that Greek yoghurt’s naturally lower lactose content than regular yoghurt makes it well-suited to Asian consumers, many of whom are lactose intolerant.

To reach more customers, Annie’s has been doing pop-ups at various farmers’ markets like City Spouts, AIR restaurant at Dempsey and the Singapore Agro-Food Enterprises Federation over the years.

That said, the team remains small, comprising six full-time and part-time staff, with Haanee and Braedan still directly involved in daily production.

Haanee shared that labour is one of the industry’s most persistent challenges. Finding people willing to do the physical, time-intensive work of food manufacturing in Singapore is increasingly difficult in the F&B sector.

The other running challenge is cost. Producing at a small, artisanal scale with premium ingredients in Singapore means that its price point cannot compete with multinational dairy brands that benefit from industrial-scale economics.

Annie’s yoghurt isn’t cheap, and Haanee doesn’t shy away from that, but she believes that her products provide good value for customers for a high-quality dairy producer.

To reduce costs, Annie’s encourages its corporate clients to participate in its very own glass jar recycling programme. It collects, sterilises, and reuses yoghurt jars for its next batch of production.

In the past year alone, close to 40,000 jars have been recovered and reincorporated into the supply chain rather than going to waste.

In it for the long run

Haanee is cautious about trend dependency.

Greek yoghurt is having a moment between viral social media content, growing protein consciousness, and a more nutritionally savvy consumer, but the goal at Annie’s isn’t to ride the wave. It’s to outlast it.

“I hope that our products build beyond trends and that people actually eat them—one, because they enjoy them, but two, because they are really good for you,” she said.

For a brand that spent close to six figures building a factory here before selling a single jar, that long-term thinking is baked into everything Annie’s does, from its values to the 14-hour strain. It’s a business built around doing things the hard way, because the founders believe the product speaks for itself.

We want to make sure we are doing the best by our customers and making the best product we can and standing by every ingredient we use.

Haanee Tyebally

• Find out more about Annie’s All Natural here.
• Read other articles about Singaporean businesses here.

Also Read: ⁠This 52 Y/O kopi business roasts 1,000kg of coffee every month & is winning over younger drinkers

Featured Image Credit: Annie’s All Natural