Learn more about Yit Hong Pte Ltd, your trusted canned food suppliers in Singapore! Discover our company's history timelines, values, vision and more!
Our History
Yit Hong Co. was set up in 1954, as a Canned food and Joss paper trading company, by Mr Ngo Kai Tian and 3 other partners in Singapore. With business starting to grow rapidly in the 1960’s, it was then established as Yit Hong Pte Ltd in 1968. Mr SL Ngo, the grandson of Mr Ngo joined the company in 1982, which was when China’s foreign trade policy was gradually opening up. Thus, the sole distributorship of our many popular canned food brands, including Narcissus of COFCO, were being challenged by many parallel and fake products.
In 1987, after a shareholders’ restructuring, Mr Ngo took over as the Executive Director. A modernization of our operations was carried out in 1989, with computer printed invoices in Chinese to cater to our Chinese speaking wholesalers, as well as palletising our warehouse operations, among others. Over the next 10 years, we shared the distributorship with another company that branched off from Yit Hong. In addition to the rampant imports of low priced, low quality parallels, and imitation canned food products, the market was flooded with same branding, but different priced and quality products, misleading consumers and damaging well established brand reputations. The China canned food business was in a chaotic state.
However, with our persistency of holding to our own value of brand authenticity and good quality, we were able to retain a group of loyal customers. Faced with a bleak future, Mr Ngo eventually succeeded in persuading COFCO’s top management in 1996, to return to the original sole distributor policy and avoid the collapse of its brands. In 1997, Yit Hong regained its official sole distributorship of Narcissus and other popular COFCO canned food brands in Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei.
Fast forward 24 years, based on Nielsen surveys, the Narcissus canned Pork and Mushroom products, as well as MaLing Pork Luncheon Meat remain the most popular canned food products in Singapore.
Under the helm of Mr Ngo, we have also built up our own house brands, YIFON and AhLing. Bringing a wider variety of unique quality canned food, snacks, and healthy drinks with the interests of our customers at heart.
We have also diversified into western canned food products, where we were appointed in 2020 as the sole distributorship for popular Spanish canned food manufacturer COREN, in Singapore and Malaysia.
As our warehouse at Robertson Quay was re-zoned to hotel in early 1990’s, we embarked to build the Gallery Hotel on the site. In 2002, SL Ngo was asked by his father, Mr Ngo Kheng Hoon to run the hotel, as the contracted management company failed badly after the first 2 years of operation under its management. Having gone through the initial hardships and SARS, we did a rebranding from a ‘HIP’ hotel to an ‘Art Centric’ hotel in 2005. On the way, winning numerous Singapore Tourism Awards, and winning the AsiaOne People’s Choice Award 2010. Due to the popularity of the Gallery Hotel, Mr Ngo was also awarded the ‘Spiritual of Enterprise Award’ in 2007. With the booming hotel industry, the 223 rooms Gallery Hotel was sold in 2013 at a record high price per room key.
We are now solidly back into our food business with a strong mandate to forge ahead towards our vision of the 100 years’ milestone.
About Us
Yit Hong Pte Ltd, an almost 7-decade-old business has grown from a small foodstuffs trading company in 1954 to a reputable leader that has made its mark in the food industry.
Yit Hong’s strength lies in our history, consistency, and trustworthiness. It’s success is driven by its reliability in providing customers with the best, be it safety, taste, or value of our products. Over 4 generations of customers have grown up with Yit Hong and are loyal fans of our popular products, such as Narcissus Pork Leg with Mushrooms.
Narcissus and Ma Ling are brands found in many Singapore households, which have also consistently maintained the number one position in Nielsen surveys for local market under the categories of Canned Mushrooms, Canned Pork, and Pork Luncheon Meat.
Establishing excellent long-term relationships with our Principles as well as with good quality and reliable manufacturers, we ensure that Yit Hong remains dedicated to maintaining the excellence in our products. As Yit Hong’s CEO, Mr SL Ngo stated, “Consumers will pay for the quality products if they have the trust in the brands”.
Our vision
Striving towards the milestone of 100 years with passion and sustainability.
Our mission
We are committed to exceed the expectation of our customers by fulfilling their needs with our quality products and services. In doing so, we build strong team and efficient processes, partnering with our suppliers and distributors to create value in a sustainable manner.
Our Core Values
- Inspiring
- Trust
- Commitment
- Team-spirit
