Empire Builder: Norma Chu, Founder, DayDayCook
🏙️ Empire Builder: Norma Chu, Founder, DayDayCook
From secret admirer to serial acquirer? Norma Chu’s vision to build the “General Mills of Asian food” has come into sharp focus over the past year as her Hong Kong-based company DayDayCook acquired Nona Lim, Yai’s Thai and, most recently, Omsom in quick succession and in a relatively quiet dealmaking environment. While the brands themselves have modest revenue, taken together they are three of the most visible representatives of a food culture that is increasingly appealing to younger generations of consumers.
Publicly traded DayDayCook, which began as a content and recipe platform in 2012, sells its own line of ready-to-eat meals internationally and has leveraged its recent transactions to expand stateside.
Chu herself came out of the finance world, beginning her career as the head of equity research at HSBC Private Bank. She is also the founder of Good Food Movement and program director of its food tech accelerator.