Sprmrkt Kitchen & Bar, located on the second floor of the Singapore Tyler Print Institute building, sees patrons dining amid contemporary photos from Singapore creative firm Studio Oooze.
Building upon their father’s expertise in meats, Andre Huber and his older brother, Ryan, founded Huber’s Butchery in 2007. Since then, the brothers have grown it into Singapore’s premium purveyor of high-quality meat and sausages. The firm now operates a sprawling 13,000 sqft gourmet store and bistro at Dempsey Hill.
LESSONS FROM HIS FATHER
Honesty might be the best policy, but for Andre, it’s more than that – it’s a way of life inspired by his father. He recalls what his father’s accountant told him: “Your father’s company is the only one I’ve seen whose accounts are completely accurate and true.
He doesn’t hide anything.” Since then, Andre has lived by a similar code of honour. He recalls one incident when a vendor sent additional goods to his company, but failed to invoice them.
“It was in our early days when it was hard to make ends meet,” he says. He then asked the vendor to send them the bill for those goods. “I learnt early on that it’s better to conduct your business honestly, so you have nothing to fear,” he says.
ON THE JOB
Huber’s father insisted that his two sons take ownership of the business right from the outset, by refusing to take up any shares. “He didn’t want his sons to feel that they were working for their father,” Andre says. He admits it was initially challenging to become a boss at the tender age of 27. “The butchers we were working with were twice my age. It took a while to convince them I could be a good boss,” he says.
AMBITIONS
The brothers’ mission is to have Huber’s Butchery be remembered for improving the quality of food in Singapore. “When we started the gourmet butchery scene, meats from the supermarkets were not great. We wanted to educate people on what was a good piece of meat, and providing that quality at a very fair price,” Andre says. In the works: exporting Huber’s Butchery products to the world. “We want to show that an Asian country such as Singapore can produce very good European-styled products.”
