Kueh chain Ollella’s founder overcomes $200,000 in losses to open fourth outlet in Tampines

SINGAPORE – In 2024, kueh chain Ollella was struggling with more than $200,000 in losses, and founder Marcella Putri Tanuwijaya took her first bank loan to keep the business running.

Determined to not just survive but also grow her business of selling traditional kueh and Indonesian dishes, the 39-year-old pressed on.

On Jan 16, she opened her fourth and newest outlet – a retail kiosk at Our Tampines Hub.

The brand she started in 2016 now also has a central kitchen at JTC Bedok Food City, in addition to the four retail outlets. With 30 employees and an annual revenue of close to $2.5 million, the kueh chain celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2026.

Ms Tanuwijaya learnt resilience early on in life. Born in Jakarta, she relocated to Singapore with her maternal grandmother and eldest brother at age six.

She started attending Boon Lay Primary School in April 1993, midway through the first semester, unable to speak English or Mandarin. Feeling lost, she relied heavily on observing others, watching how classmates queued, learning when to stand and when to sit.

“That first year taught me how to read situations quickly and adapt without panicking,” she recalls.

With only two months to the mid-year examinations then, she attended up to four hours of tuition daily and managed to pass.

“On difficult days now, I remind myself that if a six-year-old girl who did not know a single word of English or Mandarin could survive and thrive, then I can face challenges today as well.”

Family crisis

Trouble arose a few years later when her father’s business, supplying power-plant equipment in Indonesia, went bankrupt during the Asian financial crisis of 1997. He fell into depression and her mother took on multiple jobs to keep the household going.

Due to financial constraints, they made fewer visits to Singapore to see her. Her mother later set up a new company, also supplying power-plant equipment.

By age 14, Ms Tanuwijaya was helping to source power-plant parts online from Singapore and overseas for her mother’s clients. As her mother could not speak or write in English, the teenager started handling administrative tasks such as purchase orders and invoices.

Helping her mother run the business taught her prudence and accountability. She learnt to manage risk, cash flow and revenues. It also taught her to adapt quickly and stay steady under pressure, qualities she would rely on as she built Ollella through relocations, closures and a major pivot from choux pastries to traditional Indonesian kueh.

She studied at CHIJ St Theresa’s Convent and Pioneer Junior College, then graduated in 2009 from Singapore Management University with a degree in business management and marketing. She became a Singapore permanent resident in 2010.

Her first marketing role at a risk management firm taught her how to network. Less than a year later, she went back to Jakarta, upon her mother’s request. She spent two years in Indonesia helping out at her parents’ company before returning to Singapore in 2012 to get married.

She then joined LG Electronics as a corporate marketing executive for three years. There, she gained experience in branding discipline, product launches, partner marketing, public relations and social media management.

But she began to feel the pull towards building something of her own.

Starting out

In 2016, she invested $50,000 of her savings to start Ollella with her younger sister, Ollyvia, who had trained as a pastry chef in Chicago and Paris, and worked at five-star hotel The Peninsula Chicago and renowned French patisserie Pierre Herme Paris.

In March that year, Ollella – a combination of the sisters’ names – began as a patisserie focused on choux pastries.

Its first outlet was a 1,000 sq ft unit in Petain Road with 10 seats. A small run of Lapis Legit, an Indonesian layer cake, intended to draw in festive revenue during Chinese New Year, outsold expectations despite being priced at $80 for 1.4kg, signalling strong demand.

Ms Tanuwijaya handled operations, finance, branding and strategy, while her sister led the pastry production. They worked daily for two years without days off or a salary.

A turning point came in 2018 when her sister relocated to Chicago to get married. Ms Tanuwijaya, then pregnant with her second child, found herself running the business alone.

She considered closing it down, but had three employees whose livelihoods depended on her.

Instead of trying to replace her sister’s pastry expertise, she turned to the food she grew up with – traditional Indonesian kueh – refining recipes with guidance from her mother and maternal grandmother.

Signature Spiced Lapis ($29.80 for 350g, $115 for 1.4kg); Lemper Ayam ($2.20 a piece), glutinous rice roll with spiced chicken filling; and Kueh Dadar ($2.20 a piece), pandan crepe with grated coconut filling, soon became core products.

During the Covid-19 circuit breaker, when customers sought comfort and familiarity, she pivoted entirely away from choux pastries and added hot dishes such as Nasi Lemak and Mee Soto Ayam.

The pandemic saw the closure of her outlet at Takashimaya Shopping Centre in August 2020, as footfall plunged and daily revenue fell to under $200.

Ms Tanuwijaya launched a new outlet at Cluny Court in 2021, which was later closed to consolidate manpower for new Ollella branches at Paragon mall and Far East Square in 2023. To support expansion that year, she invested $300,000 in a central kitchen at JTC Bedok Food City.

In 2024, she opened a new outlet at Mount Alvernia Hospital.

That marked the start of two challenging years. Post-pandemic consumer behaviour changed and corporate gifting declined as people travelled more. Combined with rising rents and ingredient costs, Ollella incurred more than $200,000 in losses.

There were months when she worried about meeting payroll. “I would give in to bouts of crying every night. It was the support of my family and team that helped me pull through that tough period,” Ms Tanuwijaya says. She credits her husband Dennis Hu, 44, who runs an IT solutions company, for his unwavering support.

“As someone who also started his own business, he has always been encouraging towards my entrepreneurship journey,” she says.

She says she took her first bank loan of $300,000 in early 2024 and expects to pay it off in 2026.

Her leadership style has also evolved. She has become firmer about standards and expectations. Soon after the Paragon outlet opened, she discovered a food-safety lapse involving a batch of custard left unrefrigerated overnight. She terminated the two employees responsible and took over baking duties the next day.

“The employees did not feel they were in the wrong, but I have zero tolerance for employees who do not respect food safety, because we care about our customers who are consuming our products,” she says.

Meanwhile, her son, now aged six, was diagnosed with autism at 18 months. He avoided eye contact and struggled with communication. A pre-school teacher spotted the signs and recommended a formal assessment.

With little knowledge about autism, Ms Tanuwijaya and her husband initially struggled to care for him through his frequent meltdowns. Their older daughter, 11, began acting out for attention and the strain affected their marriage. Through therapy and support, they learnt to manage their expectations and their family’s needs.

Now, Ms Tanuwijaya starts her weekdays at 5.45am to prepare breakfast and bento boxes for her children. After sending them to school, she begins working from home at 7.15am, then moves between outlets and the central kitchen for quality checks, meetings and operational oversight.

Twice a week, she ends work earlier at 1pm to accompany her son to therapy before resuming administrative work at night. She tries to cook dinner for them daily and often bakes bread or cakes for their breakfast.

Moving forward

Ollella’s 10th anniversary marks a turning point for the brand. The Our Tampines Hub outlet is focused on takeaways, entering a competitive space where she believes traditional Indonesian flavours, consistency and tight operations will help it stand out.

The new outlet features exclusive items such as Dairy-free Cempedek Cake ($6.50 a slice, $58 for a nine-inch whole cake) and Fried Tapioca Balls in three flavours: Original Gula ($5 for eight pieces), Banana Mochi ($5 for four pieces) and Tempe Tahu ($5 for six pieces).

Classics include the 16-piece Kueh Bamboo Parcel ($39), which contains assorted kueh such as bika ambon (honeycomb cake) and bingka ubi (baked tapioca cake).

Ms Tanuwijaya’s focus for the next phase is on strengthening operations, developing her team and expanding more deliberately. She plans to open two more outlets in Singapore – in the north and in the west.

She says: “This decade of running Ollella represents resilience. It is me telling myself that I can continue for another 10 years. Beyond my family and team, it represents the support from loyal customers and the responsibility I feel not to disappoint them.”