Alumni Kaleidoscope: Samson Chu - BEng(IEEM)

Determined to own his own business ever since he was young, Samson turned his dream into reality when he established Imperial Bird's Nest (IBNI) a few years after graduation. Under Samson's farsighted vision, creativity and dedication to his ideal of "Staying on Top of the Best," the company has evolved from a small upstairs shop to over 30 retail stores spanning Hong Kong, Macau and Greater China in the past few years. Besides, its sales network reaches Greater China and North America's near thousand chain drug-stores, supermarkets, Chinese herbal medicine pharmacies, convenience stores and health centers, as well as famous hotels all over Hong Kong, Macau and The Philippines. Having the competitive advantage of a self-owned HACCP accredited production plant implementing strictest food quality and food safety control, 3rd party costs are dispensed with. Therefore IBNI products are greatly welcomed by restaurants, food groups, hotels and food manufacturers.

To arrive at where he is today, however, Samson had to walk a long and arduous road full of obstacles. In an era where information was hard to come by, Samson spent a year observing business activities of those dried seafood shops operating in Sheung Wan in order to learn more about the market. Within the first month of opening, his shop was burglarized leading to a great loss in supplies and cash. A year later, he was held at knifepoint by thieves demanding handover of all the bird's nest and cash in the shop. Business also suffered greatly when SARS hit – Samson recalls one day when there were only ten orders in all from his ten retail shops.

Thanks to his perseverance and faith, however, IBNI weathered through the hardships and have become stronger than ever. Its product line has now expanded to cordyceps, ginseng, traditional Chinese herbs, dried seafood and other popular health foods, aside from its core product – bird's nest. The company is now widely recognized as a market leader in the Chinese traditional health foods sector and developed business throughout mainland China, United States and Canada.  IBNI aim to be the most trustworthy leader of health care products in the worldwide Chinese communities, with underlying concept of rejuvenation through health care. IBNI has made many innovations that have revolutionized and upgraded the standards of the bird's nest industry. In addition to their innovative products like instant bottled bird's nest, IBNI adopts stringent sanitary and safety measures during production at its own production and research center. IBNI’s factory is accredited ISO22000, GMP and HACCP by International Food Safety Association. As a healthcare specialist, IBNI also renders to customers one-stop service which covers purchasing, production, designing, packaging, market research & sales, logistics and after-sales service. Ample professional experience in the industry is the valuable asset for IBNI to provide customers professional ideas and constructive advices in new product development; and more than that, comprehensive after-sales service is afforded to ensure satisfaction by customers of the product quality. Through persistent efforts exerted over the years, IBNI has been widely develop the sales network to global e-marketing channel such as HKTV mall, Tmall, Facebook, You-Tube and IBNI Apps store.