Tastemakers: Meet the 22-year-old who brought in viral $59 chocolate bars

SINGAPORE – He got a head start in earning money when his father cut off his allowance on his 14th birthday and gave him an account with e-commerce platform Alibaba with $200 in it, and instructions to “figure it out yourself”.

Forced to jump headlong into the world of buying and selling as a teen, Gen Z Singapore entrepreneur Mohamed Haikkel Firdaus credits his IT businessman father for teaching him independence and resilience.

Today, at 22, Mr Haikkel is the founder and chief executive of The SGFR Store, which sells international snacks and candies. It has six outlets in Singapore at locations like Wisteria Mall in Yishun and Esplanade Xchange.

The chain store first made waves on TikTok in 2022 for selling the viral Prime Hydration drinks. More recently, it racked up 1.6 million views for bringing in the viral Dubai pistachio cream-filled chocolate bar, Can’t Get Knafeh Of It from Dubai-based Fix Dessert Chocolatier, at a marked-up price of $59 a bar.

In 2024, he launched The SGFR Store’s own line of drinks and chocolate bars, including the locally produced Kunafe Cwumble Cwunch Pistachio in July. Priced at $35 for a 175g bar, it is inspired by the viral Dubai version.

This was followed by a line of ice cream drinks under the brand name Quench in August. The low-sugar drinks, manufactured in Vietnam, are available in flavours such as Watermelon Crush and Bubble Gum. Targeted at consumers from Gen Alpha to Gen X, 72,000 cans costing $3.90 each were sold within a month.

The SGFR Store’s success comes from hyping up its products through video content on its TikTok and Instagram pages. It has 55,000 followers on TikTok and 18,900 followers on Instagram.

Mr Haikkel’s most recent marketing coup was giving an iPhone 16 Pro Max to American online streamer IShowSpeed, also known as Speed, during his visit to Singapore in September. This was captured on YouTube, of course.

The live stream, which received 6.6 million views, gained Mr Haikkel plenty of publicity and sales – well worth the $2,200 he spent on the new iPhone.

His knack for identifying trends and cashing in on them dates back to his teen years.

From ages 14 to 16, he estimates he made a total of $10,000 online buying merchandise on Alibaba and selling them on Carousell. This ranged from action figurines to comic books related to newly released Marvel, DC and Star Wars movies.

According to the former alumnus of St Stephen’s School and St Patrick’s School, The SGFR Store evolved from a desire to monetise his fishing hobby, which started at Bedok Jetty.

He had set up a Carousell account called SGFishingRigz in March 2020 to sell fishing rigs and kits online, running it as a side hustle while starting his first semester at Temasek Polytechnic.

Business was so brisk that in January 2021, he roped in three friends to incorporate SGFishingRigz as a company, with a combined capital of $20,000 and himself as the major shareholder. Two months later, they rented a 200 sq ft office space at Paya Lebar Square.

The elder of two sons began skipping classes to attend to his business. His younger brother, an 18-year-old third-year polytechnic student, builds and sells computers as a side gig.

For Mr Haikkel, starting out as an 18-year-old boss had its pros and cons. Some suppliers refused to deal with him as they felt he was wet behind the ears. But others who did not view him as a threat were willing to show him the ropes. One even taught him how to do parallel import of products, which came in handy later when bringing in viral drinks to sell.

In April 2021, someone hacked into his business’ social media and Carousell accounts, bringing his online business activity to a standstill for a few months. Worse, school friends he had hired to work part-time fell out with his business partners. They then quit the company and blocked him on social media.

He recalls: “I thought I knew what it takes to be a leader, but I didn’t understand how to manage my friends and my partners’ expectations. Once there is money involved, things are different.

“I blamed myself a lot for how things turned out. I felt useless and helpless.”

Despite all that, the company generated a profit of $15,000 by the end of its first year and opened its first physical retail store in Tampines in March 2022. But by then, Mr Haikkel’s mental health had begun fraying and he took a back seat between June and November 2022 to seek help for anxiety-induced depression.

His business was in shambles by year-end, when he got back on track emotionally. Desperate to salvage the situation in December 2022, he imported 10 cartons of Prime Hydration drinks from the United Kingdom which had gone viral on social media that year. The drinks sold out within a day.

By February 2023, it was a clear decision to give up selling fishing gear in favour of viral drinks and snacks.

He rounded up investors and enlisted the help of Singapore-based Luqmaan Hakiim, who has 149,100 followers on TikTok, to help promote his store. Mr Haikkel eventually roped in the Singaporean influencer as a partner and co-founder. Together, they rebranded the business as The SGFR Store in July 2023. 

After graduating with a diploma in business in 2023, Mr Haikkel went full throttle, building up his full-time staff strength to 21 and enlisting a team of nine influencers to promote his products.

Because of his constant presence on TikTok, he has become an online celebrity of sorts to his Gen Alpha followers, aged 12 and below. They often accost him for autographs during store openings.

He now has 7,179 followers on his personal TikTok account, but does not consider himself an online tastemaker, though he has decided preferences where snacks are concerned.

Currently, he has a weakness for the Vlinder Chocolate Crispy Kunafa & Pistachio bar from Saudi Arabia, which sells for $40 for a 240g bar at his outlets. He prefers this to the higher-priced Fix Dessert Chocolatier bar, because the pistachio cream it contains is more intense and has a more liquid texture.

So what is next for the man who has made a meal out of trending snacks?

He plans to open another two to three stores, possibly in Jurong, Punggol or Sengkang, by early 2025, and has set his sights on opening in Kuala Lumpur too.

He adds: “I see myself as a businessman, not an influencer. Gen Alpha followers are inspired by my story because they hope to be content creators and run their own businesses. I am living their dream.”