Bread & Jam Fest: TeaJoy founder on scaling into foodservice

Bread & Jam Fest interviewed TeaJoy co-founder Ning Ma about how the brand grew from a lockdown idea at her Brixton restaurant, MamaLan, into a foodservice supplier. Ning told the site that lockdown had stopped South Londoners travelling to Chinatown for bubble tea, and that when she looked into making it herself she found the process complex and inconsistent. That led her to develop a ready-to-mix bubble tea syrup, made from jasmine tea and real fruit, that customers or operators simply add water and ice to.

The piece covers the partnerships that took TeaJoy into venues such as Steak & Co and Las Iguanas, both struck at an operators' dinner, and Black Sheep Coffee, secured through a conference pitch. Ning named distributor Brakes as the real turning point: before that deal she was sending stock to 50 sites a week herself, and the listing opened the door to further customers. Ning Ma told the site, "Foodservice is necessary if you want to grow and scale." She also flagged plans for retail boxes that let people make bubble tea at home, and was due to appear on a Foodservice Summit operations panel.

Read the piece on Bread & Jam Fest. For trade enquiries, see our wholesale page.