Driving through Sungei Tengah, one could be forgiven for wondering if they were still in Singapore. Here, on seemingly boundless plots of land, aquaculture farms sit alongside horticulture and agri-food businesses. Amongst them is Qian Hu Corporation, one of a small handful of companies operating on Singapore Food Agency (SFA) tendered farm spaces.
While still widely associated with ornamental fish, Qian Hu’s business model has evolved far beyond koi and luohan. Over the past decade, Qian Hu has been strategic and systematic in branching into other areas of growth, from pet accessories to high-tech aquaculture and packaging.
This diversification reflects a calculated approach to managing risk in a volatile global trade environment, all while tapping into long-term trends that are shaping both pet ownership and food production.
Yap Kok Cheng, chairman of the company, puts it plainly: “Qian Hu is really four pillars: fish, pet accessories, aquaculture and plastics. We see ourselves as an integrated operator with expertise across the value chain.”
Beyond the legacy business
Today, Qian Hu remains a major player in the ornamental tropical fish trade. With integrated capabilities from farming and quarantine to export of more than 1000 species and varieties, it operates across 80 cities and countries, including Japan, China, the UK, Germany and others.
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Yet Yap also notes several key global trends that are informing how Qian Hu has refined its focus as it eyes future growth. “A lot of young parents would rather have pets than children,” he says, which, as a result, is driving global growth in pet products and accessories.
At Qian Hu, the pet accessories business delivered $272,000 in segment profit for the first half of 2025 — an 81% y-o-y rise — despite being smaller than the fish segment. “Accessories provide annuity‑like revenue without the risks of live fish — no mortality, no quarantines and easier scalability,” Yap adds.
Next, he highlights how, since 2017, Qian Hu has been operating aquaculture farms not just in Singapore, but also in Malaysia and China’s Hainan province. In Singapore, they’re applying AIoT (Artificial Intelligence of Things) systems that utilise hydrophones to “listen” to feeding behaviours and trigger pellet feeders automatically.
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Through these efficiency improvements, he cites up to 30% productivity gains. After all, automated feeding means ponds can be monitored and managed with less manual labour, supporting round-the-clock optimisation.
Beyond feeding, Qian Hu is even developing AI tools for disease prediction and biomass measurement, which could, in turn, lower mortality rates and enhance yield. These capabilities may also be commercialised to other farmers, creating new revenue streams.
Finally, Yap shares how Qian Hu’s plastics business, which used to supply mainly industrial plastic bags, has since pivoted to food and medical-grade packaging, including the development of antimicrobial materials.
These have potential applications in both healthcare and food safety, aligning the business with broader hygiene and sustainability trends and making it more relevant to long-term demand in essential sectors.
Navigating risks
While these developments hint at areas of growth for Qian Hu, Yap is also well aware of the headwinds facing the company. But to him, these are signals to double down on long-term investments.
Given the uncertainties surrounding Singapore’s aquaculture land leases, which typically run for 20 years with a possible 10-year extension, he is already building capacity in Malaysia, Thailand and China. These overseas farms serve as stepping stones toward a more resilient regional footprint that ensures continuity regardless of policy shifts at home.
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The same mindset applies to trade tensions. With many of Qian Hu’s accessories manufactured in China, exposure to US tariffs has been unavoidable. Rather than simply wait for conditions to improve, Yap has broadened the company’s product lines and extended its market reach to 30 countries. This strategy intends to cushion the company against abrupt changes in any one market, positioning it to capture growth wherever demand is strongest.
Operationally, too, Yap’s focus is on investing for resilience. The rollout of an enterprise resource planning system across subsidiaries has allowed Qian Hu to slash inventories significantly.
While the system required upfront investment and training, the payoff is a leaner, more efficient operation that frees up cash and keeps the company net cash positive — vital traits in an industry where shocks can happen overnight.
A long-term, calculated mindset
The financials reflect this long-term calculus. In the first half of FY2025, Qian Hu’s revenue held steady at $35.1 million, but net profit slipped to $31,000 — an 88% decline from the previous year. By segment, ornamental fish profits fell 12% y-o-y, plastics dropped 23%, while accessories surged 81%. On the surface, these numbers may appear discouraging.
But Yap emphasises that these numbers point to a company in the middle of transition — channelling resources into new farms, new systems and new products.
The same pattern holds for the full year 2024, when Qian Hu booked $71.4 million in revenue but $357,000 in net profit. For Yap, these margins represent the cost of building a stronger foundation. As he says, new ventures like the Indonesian farm or antimicrobial packaging require upfront expenditure before they can deliver returns.
“We remain cash-positive,” Yap adds. “But we’re not pursuing rapid growth at the expense of sustainability.” His insistence that dividends be “based on results, not promises” underscores the same ethos: measured progress, not empty assurances.
His stance reflects a deep familiarity with volatility. Over the years, Qian Hu has endured disease outbreaks, trade disruptions and supply chain shocks. Each crisis has reinforced the need to anticipate change early and to invest in capabilities before they become urgent.
Today, that approach is visible across the company’s strategy: accessories that ride the global rise of pet ownership, AIoT aquaculture technologies that promise efficiency and disease control and packaging innovations that align with health and food safety trends.
As Yap puts it: “We anticipate change, make calculated early moves and build capabilities. Sure, we started with fish — but the future of Qian Hu is much bigger than that.”
About Qian Hu Corporation
Incorporated in 1998, Qian Hu is an integrated ornamental fish service provider — providing a spectrum of services involving the distribution of well over 1,000 species and varieties of ornamental fish from all around the world, as well as the manufacturing and distribution of a wide range of aquarium accessories, including pet foods and medications. In 2017, the Group kick-started its aquaculture business, farming antibiotic-free edible fish fingerlings in Hainan Province, China. It also deals in the export of edible fish and seafood from Hainan to Southeast Asia, and the import of other edible fish and seafood from the rest of the world into China. Its two farms occupy a combined land area of 10,000 square metres and have more than 200 tanks to rear a host of edible fish and seafood.
About kopi-C: the Company brew
kopi-C is a regular column by SGX Research in collaboration with Beansprout (https://growbeansprout.com), a MAS-licensed investment advisory platform, that features C-level executives of leading companies listed on the Singapore Exchange. These interviews are profiles of senior management aimed at helping investors better understand the individuals who run these corporations
