The Pumpkin: Organic & Natural Health Store

In the year 2000, a housewife started her business at her home, selling organic vegetables to the neighbourhood. When customer base grew, she moved her business to a commercial store and gave her store the name; “Farmland Organic”. The founder, Katherine Goh, added more elements to her organic store business by providing cooked food to customers. Her business grew greater in the next 15 years, pea

king her entrepreneurship life in her 60s. In the year 2016, unable to keep up with challenging market and advancement of technology, the entrepreneur called a stop. Few years later in the 2019, an unexpected new chapter of the business legacy unfolded. The son of Katherine Goh together with his wife decided to revive the organic store. Heong and Janet who was an engineer and a HR manager returned to Kuala Lumpur from Johor Bahru. The new store took the name “The Pumpkin” while remaining the signature logo of Farmland Organic; an orange plump pumpkin. The store is run by Heong, Janet, Katherine & Michael (Katherine’s husband) in the first year. It was really a struggling year as old customers from Farmland Organic are no longer returning, new customers are not noticing the store, business start-up fund is running low really fast and competition is tight. The store opened two days a week to protect the team from viruses. Kitchen unable to operate and only able to do fresh vegetables deliveries. In the second year, The Pumpkin expended their business to supply organic vegetables to restaurants and organic retailers. New facilities such as 10ft x 10ft cold storage was installed in the store to maintain freshness of vegetables. Sales had increased throughout the year reaching RM 500k the second year. However, lack of experience in the young couple had caused the business to grow too slow; profit margin was kept too low that the business can hardly sustain on monthly basis. The Pumpkin stayed on to the third year but business loans after business loans are taken. The consumer market changed too rapidly due to prolonged Covid-19 situation and public health policies. It forces the team to switch their concentration from selling fresh vegetables to cooked meals. Orders were taken via What’s App at first and slowly switches to food delivery partners namely Grab Food & Food Panda. The Pumpkin is still struggling to have each month-end meet, but they are still standing strong physically and spiritually. As at November 2022, yearly revenue hit RM 700k and 8 people are in the team.