A Couple Started A Hypermarket Sushi Counter In 2010 — Now It’s Worth RM770 Million
Empire Sushi is a story about the economics of frictionless spending — how a company built on the lowest-commitment purchase in Malaysian retail quietly became worth three-quarters of a billion ringgit.
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At some point in the last decade, you almost certainly walked past an Empire Sushi counter in a Malaysian shopping mall, glanced at the colourful glass cabinet, maybe bought a few pieces, and definitely did not think: “This is a RM770 million company.”
And yet.
Empire Premium Food Bhd, operator of the grab-and-go kuih chain that has quietly colonised mall corridors across every state in Malaysia, is set to debut on Bursa Malaysia’s Main Market on 17 April.
The market has already made its feelings known, with the Initial Public Offering (IPO) oversubscribed by 23.3 times on the public portion, drawing 1.336 billion shares for just 55 million available to Malaysian retail investors.
The IPO involves 218 million new shares at 70 sen each, raising RM152.6 million for the company to open 77 new outlets, refurbish existing stores, and fund working capital — while a separate offer for sale of 145 million existing shares hands RM101.5 million directly to founders and husband-and-wife team Nicole Lim and Jordan Tan.
The valuation: RM770 million.
The product: sushi — the thing that used to mean hotel dining rooms and special occasions — from under RM2 a piece.
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It Started In A Hypermarket, Obviously It Did
The company was founded in 2010 by Lim and Tan — not with a flagship restaurant, not with venture capital, not with a viral TikTok, but on a consignment basis inside hypermarkets.
Their first dedicated counter opened at Berjaya Times Square in Kuala Lumpur, and from there, the formula was almost aggressively simple: prove it works, then copy it.
Two outlets became four, then eight, then sixteen — and today, Empire Sushi operates 143 outlets across every state in Malaysia.
The origin story is genuinely earnest.
Lim grew up in the 1990s when sushi was still a luxury — something her family had to travel far just to eat.
She wanted to make it everyday food while Tan, a trained sushi chef, shared the same vision.
They married and built the business together; it is, in the most literal sense, a dream that worked.
The Part Where The Numbers Stop Making Sense — Until They Do
For the financial year ending 2025, Empire Sushi posted results that require a moment to sit with:
| Metric | FY2025 |
|---|---|
| Revenue | RM235.6 million |
| Profit Before Tax | RM51.1 million |
| PBT Margin | 21.7% |
| Pieces Sold | 108 million |
| Outlets (at filing) | 122 (as at the latest practicable date of 25 February 2026, outlet count had grown to 143) |
| Avg Spend Per Customer | RM19.30 |
| Customers Per Store Per Day | ~274 |
Each store generates roughly RM1,139 in profit per day.
That is not a glamorous number per outlet, but multiply it by 122 stores, however, and it stops being unimpressive very quickly.
More striking: profit margins have grown for three consecutive years — from 10.6 per cent, to 14.2 per cent, to 16.1 per cent.
The company is not just growing; it is getting leaner as it grows, and that is what makes investors pay attention.
In FY2025, Empire Sushi recorded 12.2 million customer transactions across its outlets — roughly 274 customers per store, per day.
108 million pieces of sushi were sold in a single year, across 122 outlets, at an average of RM19.30 a visit.
Kalau tahun lepas oriental kopi debut ipo, tahun ni giliran empire sushi pulak.
— Umar (@umarmaggi) March 27, 2026
Last year, Empire Food Berhad ni punya revenue dah cecah >200 juta.
Profit? >37 juta.
That’s a solid magin !
🧵 pic.twitter.com/1vCwaPGx3S
The Strategy, Which Is Either Obvious Or Genius Depending On Your Mood
Empire Sushi does not operate like a restaurant; nearly 90 per cent of its outlets are pure grab-and-go counters.
Only 16 offer dine-in seating, and there are no waiters, no reservations, and no ambience to maintain.
The business runs on three ideas that sound simple but aren’t, because no one else has scaled them quite like this.
First: borrow someone else’s crowd. Malls spend enormous sums attracting foot traffic. Empire Sushi places a counter in the flow and lets the mall do the work. No independent marketing budget required when ten thousand shoppers walk past daily.
Second: sell the impulse, not the meal. Customers do not need to crave sushi to buy it. They need to walk past a colourful glass cabinet, see something that looks good, and register that individual pieces cost just a few ringgit. The decision takes seconds.
Third: remove all friction. No set meals. No minimum spend. Buy one piece if you want. Buy 30. The average customer spends RM19.30 — which means they are, in fact, buying quite a few pieces — but nothing about the transaction feels like a commitment.
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What Comes After The Listing
Here is what is quietly remarkable about this story: no celebrity chef, no fine-dining pivot, no fusion concept that required explanation.
Just a glass cabinet, a mall corridor, and a very affordable price point — repeated 108 million times in a single year, across a country where everyone already knows what a shopping mall looks like.
The formula was not complicated.
Executing it at scale, with margins that improve year on year, while keeping the product accessible enough that a schoolkid and a retiree will both stop at the counter — that part was.
The company is also Shariah-compliant, a designation that broadens its appeal to Malaysia’s Muslim retail investor base — a factor reflected in the IPO’s allocation of the Bumiputera tranche.
Whether the valuation holds, whether 143 outlets can become 200, and whether mall foot traffic remains a reliable engine for the next decade — those are the questions that follow this listing.
For now, the most honest summary of Empire Sushi’s IPO is this: a couple started selling sushi at a hypermarket in 2010, and 16 years later, the market values it at three-quarters of a billion ringgit.
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