Origins: Phoon Huat

RedMan’s history is closely connected to Phoon Huat, the Singaporean company behind the brand. Phoon Huat was founded in 1947 by Wong Tai Fuang, a Hainanese entrepreneur who had moved from Hainan, China, to Singapore. He started with a small shop of approximately 35 square metres on Middle Road. In its early years, Wong personally delivered products to customers by bicycle, helping establish the company’s reputation for honesty and reliability. Over subsequent decades, Phoon Huat evolved from a small provision shop into a specialist supplier of baking ingredients and culinary products serving both businesses and consumers.

Birth of RedMan

The RedMan brand was launched and registered in 1958, eleven years after the establishment of Phoon Huat. The brand’s original product was a rose-flavoured concentrate 3. This is significant because RedMan did not initially begin as the enormous baking-ingredients range it is today; instead, it gradually expanded its portfolio over the following decades.

During the 1960s, RedMan introduced products including orange-flavoured concentrate, rose-flavoured concentrate and other beverage flavourings. In the 1970s, the brand expanded into baking products, including RedMan Double Action Baking Powder. In the 1980s, it introduced products such as Snow White Icing Sugar 16 and developed coloured and flavoured emulsions known as Emulco. This gradual expansion transformed RedMan from a flavouring-oriented brand into a much broader baking-ingredients brand.

• 1947: Phoon Huat is established by Wong Tai Fuang in Middle Road, Singapore.
• 1958: RedMan is launched and registered as a brand 30313233343637.
• 1960s: Phoon Huat expands into Malaysia and other markets. RedMan products including orange and rose concentrates are developed.
• 1970s: RedMan expands further into baking ingredients, including Double Action Baking Powder. Phoon Huat also expands into markets such as Burma and Indonesia.
• 1980s: The brand introduces Snow White Icing Sugar 17 and develops its Emulco range of coloured and flavoured emulsions.
• 1990s: Phoon Huat expands further into Hong Kong, the UAE and Shanghai, while continuing to develop its ingredient business.
• 2000s: RedMan expands into newer categories including Konnyaku Jelly Powder and a Bubble Tea Series. Phoon Huat also begins entering the supermarket channel.
• 2012: The RedMan logo is refreshed, forming part of a broader effort to modernise the brand.
• 2017: Phoon Huat launches a RedMan Baking Studio in Serangoon 35 and opens a RedMan-branded retail store there. The company also achieves ISO 22000 food-safety certification covering its company-wide operations.
• 2018: A RedMan store opens at The Star Vista, while RedManShop.com is launched initially in connection with the Baking Studio.
• 2019: RedMan products become available through online marketplaces including Amazon and JD.com.
• 2020: RedManShop.com becomes a full e-commerce platform, significantly expanding the brand’s online presence. RedMan Rewards is also introduced.

RedMan today covers a remarkably broad range of baking and culinary products. Its assortment is designed to serve both beginners and professionals. Phoon Huat states that the RedMan brand has grown to more than 15,000 products, ranging from easy-to-use premixes for novice bakers to specialist ingredients for professional recipes 24.

Major Categories

• Flours: Plain flour, bread flour 4, specialty flours and unbleached flour.
• Sugars: Fine sugar, caster sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar 26 and Snow White icing sugar 27.
• Baking ingredients: Baking powder, baking mixes, cake mixes, bread ingredients, yeast-related products, thickeners and stabilisers.
• Flavourings: Vanilla, rose 28, orange, strawberry, mango, lychee, lemon and other flavour concentrates and essences 1220.
• Chocolate and cocoa: Cocoa products, chocolate chips, baking chocolate and chocolate decorations.
• Nuts and dried fruits: Almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, prunes and other baking ingredients.
• Cake decoration: Icing, royal icing mixes 19, decorations, colours, sprinkles and related products.
• Premixes: Sponge cake mixes, biscuit/cookie mixes and other convenient baking mixes.

The current RedMan online catalogue illustrates this breadth, with products ranging from plain and bread flour to caster sugar, icing sugar, vanilla products and butter 21315212223.

Certain RedMan products are particularly representative of the brand’s history and market position.

Rose Flavoured Concentrate

The Rose Flavoured Concentrate is historically important as the product with which the RedMan brand began. It remains in the range today. The current product is manufactured in Singapore and is a concentrated, unsweetened flavouring commonly used in recipes and beverages such as bandung 28.

Icing Sugar

RedMan icing sugar is a longstanding staple. The product is made from finely ground sugar combined with corn starch and is available in consumer and bulk formats 26. The Snow White variant is also widely available 1827. The current product is designed and produced in Singapore and is halal-certified.

Bread Flour

RedMan Bread Flour is a higher-protein flour intended particularly for breads and buns. The current product is described as having approximately 12.8–13.8% protein and is halal-certified 4.

Flavour Concentrates

RedMan has retained its historical strength in flavourings. Its catalogue includes rose, orange, mango, strawberry, lemon, lime, lychee, grape, raspberry, sarsi, pineapple, blackcurrant and other concentrates 1220.

One of RedMan’s defining characteristics is that it does not exclusively target professional bakers. Its customer base can broadly be divided into four groups:

Home Bakers

RedMan has become particularly associated with Singapore’s home-baking culture. Products such as small bags of flour, sugar, flavourings, cake mixes and decorating supplies make the brand accessible to people baking at home.

Professional Bakers and Pâtissiers

Professional users can purchase ingredients in larger commercial quantities. RedMan’s range extends well beyond supermarket-style consumer products.

F&B Businesses

Phoon Huat serves cafés, restaurants, hotels, bakeries and other food-service businesses. The company states it serves more than 5,000 F&B and HORECA outlets and manufacturers in Singapore 10.

Food Manufacturers

The wider Phoon Huat business also provides wholesale, distribution and related services to food manufacturers 25.

This dual consumer-and-business model is one of the reasons RedMan has developed such a large product range.

It is important to distinguish between the company and the brand. Phoon Huat is the company and broader retail and food-supply business, while RedMan is one of its major brands. Phoon Huat also owns other brands, including Bakeway, GoldTree, Phoon Huat Deli, SoHale and RedMan Gourmand 11.

Conceptually:
* Phoon Huat: Company and business entity
* RedMan: Major house brand
* RedMan by Phoon Huat: Retail-store concept 29
* RedManShop.com: Online shopping platform

The distinction can sometimes become blurred because consumers often use “RedMan” to refer to the entire baking-supply shopping experience.

RedMan eventually developed beyond a product label into a retail brand. Phoon Huat historically operated stores under its own name, but recognised that its traditional image could appear dated to younger consumers. A brand study beginning in 2011 led to a redesign of RedMan’s identity and packaging, with more than 7,000 product types subsequently overhauled 1.

The first flagship RedMan by Phoon Huat store opened at The Star Vista in 2018. The concept was intended to make the shopping experience more appealing to younger, experience-oriented customers while retaining the variety and value associated with Phoon Huat. RedMan-branded locations subsequently expanded to places including Serangoon, Holland Village, Bukit Panjang Plaza, Westgate and other locations within Singapore’s wider retail network 29. Phoon Huat’s current store locator lists multiple RedMan-branded stores alongside traditional Phoon Huat outlets 14.

RedMan has also become a digital commerce brand. Phoon Huat initially experimented with e-commerce in 2018, but launched a full-fledged RedManShop.com platform in 2020. The timing was particularly significant because the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major shift toward home baking and online shopping 8. The online platform allows consumers to purchase the same broad ecosystem of ingredients and baking products without visiting a physical store. Today, RedManShop.com functions as the brand’s principal direct-to-consumer online shopping destination.

RedMan’s positioning is summarised as “a one-stop baking destination”. Rather than specialising in one narrow product category, RedMan attempts to cover almost the entire baking journey. A beginner can purchase flour, sugar, eggs, butter, cake mix, flavouring, icing and decorations in a single trip, while a professional baker can source commercial quantities, specialist ingredients, flavourings, chocolate, nuts, decorations and equipment. This creates a powerful breadth-of-assortment proposition 7.

RedMan’s identity has historically been strongly associated with red packaging, baking and pastry, accessibility, product variety, value, Singaporean heritage, professional-grade ingredients and home baking. The modern RedMan identity was partly the result of a deliberate rebranding exercise intended to retain the heritage associated with Phoon Huat while making the experience more contemporary and attractive to younger customers 1. This creates a dual identity as both a traditional heritage brand and a modern baking lifestyle brand.

RedMan and Phoon Huat occupy an unusual position in Singapore’s food retail landscape. It is neither simply a supermarket brand nor purely a professional food-service supplier. Instead, it sits between the supermarket, the specialist baking shop and the professional ingredient supplier. This means that a Singaporean home baker can shop in the same ecosystem as a professional pastry chef or bakery operator.

The brand became especially visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, when home baking surged and consumers queued at Phoon Huat stores to obtain ingredients. Contemporary reporting described Phoon Huat as an important part of Singapore’s baking ecosystem during this period 9.

Although RedMan is fundamentally a Singaporean brand, its history has never been exclusively domestic. Phoon Huat began expanding into Malaysia in the 1960s. The company subsequently expanded into markets including Indonesia, Hong Kong, the UAE, Shanghai and other regions 6. The brand is therefore better described as a Singapore-origin regional baking brand rather than simply a Singapore retail label.

RedMan has also developed a presence in Vietnam, where its current website positions the business as a supplier to bakeries, cafés, restaurants and food manufacturers, leveraging its Singapore heritage and regional ingredient-sourcing network 5.

Phoon Huat has operated its own production facilities and has progressively expanded its manufacturing and logistics infrastructure. In 2017, Phoon Huat obtained ISO 22000 Food Safety Management System certification covering company-wide operations including production, processing, trading and retail. Some RedMan products are explicitly described as being designed and produced in Singapore, including its icing sugar and flavour concentrates.

RedMan competes in several different markets simultaneously. Against supermarkets, its advantage is specialisation and depth; while a conventional supermarket might stock a few types of flour, sugar and baking chocolate, RedMan can offer thousands of specialist ingredients and tools. Against specialist baking shops, its advantage is its scale, heritage, distribution network and house-brand portfolio. Against imported brands, RedMan’s locally produced products can compete on accessibility and price, while the company also imports and distributes numerous international brands. Phoon Huat’s current product portfolio combines RedMan’s own products with international brands, allowing its stores to function as one-stop culinary supply centres.

RedMan’s importance lies in its development over nearly seven decades. From Phoon Huat’s beginnings as a small Singapore shop in 1947 to the creation of RedMan in 1958, the brand expanded from concentrates into baking ingredients throughout the 1960s to 1980s. By the 1990s and 2000s, Phoon Huat had developed into a regional food-ingredient supplier. In the 2010s, RedMan was modernised as a consumer-facing brand, and from 2018 onward, dedicated RedMan stores and e-commerce strengthened its consumer identity. Today, RedMan operates as a broad baking and culinary ecosystem serving both home consumers and professional food businesses.

1. From “old school” Phoon Huat to modern Redman stores – DesignSingapore Council
2. Baking Essentials
3. RedManShop | ROSE FLAVOURED CONCENTRATE 500ML
4. RedManShop | BREAD FLOUR 1KG
5. RedManShop
6. Phoon Huat Pte Ltd, Singapore (2026)
7. Essential Baking with Redman: Quality Ingredients for Perfect RecipesRedMan by Phoon Huat | Your One-Stop Shop for Baking Essentials in Singapore
8. Media – RedManShop
9. Syarikat keluarga Phoon Huat yang bermula dengan hanya gerai tepi jalan, kini jenama terkemuka di Singapura – CNA
10. バターの話とシンガポールの製菓材料店はお得です | トゥインクル シンガポール上陸
11. About Us
12. Flavours
13. REDMAN – Page 127 – RedManShop
14. Store Locator
15. redman – Page 116 – RedManShop
16. RedManShop | ICING SUGAR SNOW WHITE 500G
17. RedManShop | ICING SUGAR SNOW WHITE 1KG
18. ICING SUGAR SNOW WHITE 500G (#9793) – RedManShop
19. ROYAL ICING MIX 250G (#64622)
20. Concentrate
21. redman – Page 103 – RedManShop
22. Carton Size – Page 42 – RedManShop
23. New All product
24. PhoonHuat Catalogue
25. Export – Phoon Huat
26. RedMan Icing Sugar | NTUC FairPrice
27. RedMan Icing Sugar – Snow White | NTUC FairPrice
28. RedMan Flavoured Concentrate – Rose | NTUC FairPrice
29. REDMAN by Phoon Huat | Bakery & Confectionery | Food & Beverage | CapitaLand Malls
30. Night march :: Bruce Lancaster :: Redman 1958 :: OBNB, the Open British National Bibliography
31. By road to Turkey :: Robert Bell :: Redman 1958 :: OBNB, the Open British National Bibliography
32. Lecture notes on midwifery :: T. F. Redman :: Wright 1958 :: OBNB, the Open British National Bibliography
33. The dark places : a novel :: Clifford Allen :: Redman 1958 :: OBNB, the Open British National Bibliography
34. Rage on the bar :: Geoffrey Atheling Wagner :: Alvin Redman 1958 :: OBNB, the Open British National Bibliography
35. redman serangoon studio
36. The money goes round and round :: Jack Trevor Story :: Redman 1958 :: OBNB, the Open British National Bibliography
37. The seed and the fruit. Vol.2!, Amelie and Pierre :: Henri Troyat :: Redman 1958 :: OBNB, the Open British National Bibliography