Upcycle AND BE sustainable
A gifting business born during Circuit Breaker, Atlas Handcrafted was the first to fashionably package food gifts on restaurant plateware, while supporting heritage food artisans in need.
It can be an uphill task to make upcycling look glamorous, but the business partners of Atlas Handcrafted, Nicholas Lin and Mak Sin Wee, constantly live up to their tag line of “Gifting Reimagined”. During Circuit Breaker in 2020, they realised that many elderly hawkers and small businesses were not faring well. So, armed with backgrounds in e-commerce sites and art, they decided to help them pivot online.
Explains Wee: “We saw there was a niche to send food gifts during this time, as families and friends could not visit each other, but they mostly came in styrofoam or plastic containers.” Knowing a few restaurateur friends who had called it quits, the environmentalist-minded Wee was disheartened to think of the many perfectly good plates, trays, boards, glassware and
bento boxes making their way to the landfill.
Wee is a jewellery retailer by trade, so he came up with the idea to sell their ready-to-eat food collections like a fashion house, based on the crockery pieces salvaged from closing eateries or the colour palette of edible flowers. More than a year later, some collections have naturally sold out, but other platters have become so popular that they continue to offer them. They have now branched out into packaging design, bespoke cocktails, wine, balloons and more.
Their work is meaningful, says Wee, as they work with small businesses to expand their income streams, while also benefiting from their decades of experience and personal stories. At the same time, Singaporeans overseas who couldn’t visit their families and friends sought out the duo for their uplifting products. “It’s very heartfelt to read their messages, which we tried our very best to convey through our effort in putting together the gift platters. Our customers are fully aware of our causes, [and know that] shopping on our site means [they are helping to] preserve heritage and small businesses,” Wee recounts.