2016-172016-17
Ideation: A team of 4 from NUS (Preston, Kenneth, SS and Jo) worked on the treatsure app project from zero to one, building the business, app and backend entirely from scratch!
Our journey
From a fridge-staring moment to a food-saving movement
How a question at the fridge became a surplus food movement.
treatsure is an imaginative startup tackling the age-old problem of food wastage with the power of technology and new solutions.
Sometime in 2016, Preston witnessed his family throwing out consumable expiring food from his fridge. He wondered, “Might it be possible to have an app to redistribute food to others?”
After brainstorming with his friend Kenneth and market research, the duo then found some potential in the B2C space and started working on the idea.
In Sep 2017, the app was released on App Store and in 2018, it was released on the Play Store after repeated user requests. Today, we continue to press on with our mission to treat food as treasure, alongside hundreds of thousands of users in our community in Singapore and beyond!
The founders
Treat food as treasure
Preston and Kenneth started treatsure with a simple belief: good food should be treasured and shared with the power of technology.
Milestones
Scroll through the years, or jump to one.
- 2016-17
20172017
- Sep 2017 launch: after a year of development, we launched the treatsure app on Apple App Store with 10 F&B partners, mostly confectioneries. Our first app surplus food order was a strawberry cream puff at $1.65 from our then-partner 3 Sweets by Chewy Junior at Raffles City!
- Oct 2017: secured our first media coverage by Vulcan Post.
20182018
- Jan 2018: onboarded The Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Singapore as our first hotel partner in the bakery segment.
- Apr 2018: Launched Play Store version after many requests from users.
- Aug 2018: Pivoted from bakeries to launch APAC's first ever takeaway buffet-in-a-box concept, in collaboration with StraitsKitchen at our first hotel partner in the buffet segment, Grand Hyatt Singapore. Other early partners included: Novotel Singapore on Stevens, Fairmont Singapore and Swissôtel the Stamford, Singapore.
20192019
Apr 2019: by divine intervention we diversified into surplus groceries with three pioneer partners, UglyFood, Amoy Canning and Atasco, a full year ahead of an unprecedented global pandemic criss.
20202020
Apr 2020: COVID-19 pandemic Circuit Breaker measures come into effect and buffet restaurants had to close under pandemic regulations. The restaurant vertical closed almost completely except Grand Hyatt Singapore and Novotel Singapore on Stevens. Surplus groceries, however, saw a huge surge in demand.
2021–20222021–2022
- waves of pandemic measures and limited resumption of buffets through the assisted buffet-in-a-box model.
- Spearheaded the reusable treatsure box scheme to promote reusables.
- During this period, we moved into our first grocery concept store at Oxley Tower at Robinson Road for self-collections.
2022-20232022-2023
dec 2022: moved into a larger space at 7 Tanjong Pagar Plaza, with capacity to hold experiential events and activities like corporate / school workshops and learning journeys, benefiting at least 1,000 participants through the year.
20232023
- Sep 2023: our cofounder Preston won the inaugural Impact Leader of the Year award at the UOB-Business Times Sustainability Impact Awards 2023.
- Oct 2023: our team had the honour to meet and greet then-PM Lee Hsien Loong and President Tharman at the Istana after helping the Prime Minister's Office to coordinate a National Day Reception for 200+ people involving surplus ingredients and reusables!
20242024
sep 2024: we hit an app milestone of 100K users during the 7th anniversary of the treatsure app. the team also created a pop-up private dining experience with surplus food at our concept store!
20252025
- app milestone of 200K users.
- jan 2025: launched the thrill box concept for a semi-mystery pastry box bundle in collaboration with The Shop at Grand Hyatt Singapore.
- nov 2025: expanded the app to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with 3 pioneer partners: The Westin KL, Grand Millennium KL and Furama Bukit Bintang.