About Us

What We Do
An organic store selling organic vegetables, fruits, poultry, groceries and supplements. More of daily essential food ingredients such as vegetables, rice, oil, sauces, seasonings and flour than supplements. Have a few tables in the store for customers to sit-in for some cooked organic meals and coffee. Food is prepared based on whole food concept and ingredients are mostly from local organic farms. Appears on GrabFood, GrabMart , Food Panda and Shopee Food.

Once Upon A Time

In the year 2000, a housewife started her business at her home, selling organic vegetables to the neighbourhood. When customer base grew, she moved her business to a commercial store and gave her store the name; “Farmland Organic”. The founder, Katherine Goh, added more elements to her organic store business by providing cooked food to customers. Her business grew greater in the next 15 years, peaking her entrepreneurship life in her 60s. In the year 2016, unable to keep up with challenging market and advancement of technology, the entrepreneur called a stop.

Few years later in the 2019, an unexpected new chapter of the business legacy unfolded. The son of Katherine Goh together with his wife decided to revive the organic store. Heong and Janet who was an engineer and a HR manager returned to Kuala Lumpur from Johor Bahru. The new store took the name “The Pumpkin” while remaining the signature logo of Farmland Organic; an orange plump pumpkin.

The store is run by Heong, Janet, Katherine & Michael (Katherine’s husband) in the first year. It was really a struggling year as old customers from Farmland Organic are no longer returning, new customers are not noticing the store, business start-up fund is running low really fast and competition is tight. The situation got worsen in 2020 during Covid-19 outbreak. The store opened two days a week to protect the team from viruses. Kitchen unable to operate and only able to do fresh vegetables deliveries.

In the second year, The Pumpkin expended their business to supply organic vegetables to restaurants and organic retailers. New facilities such as 10ft x 10ft cold storage was installed in the store to maintain freshness of vegetables. Sales had increased throughout the year reaching RM 500k the second year. However, lack of experience in the young couple had caused the business to grow too slow; profit margin was kept too low that the business can hardly sustain on monthly basis.

The Pumpkin stayed on to the third year but business loans after business loans are taken. The consumer market changed too rapidly due to prolonged Covid-19 situation and public health policies. It forces the team to switch their concentration from selling fresh vegetables to cooked meals. Orders were taken via What’s App at first and slowly switches to food delivery partners namely Grab Food & Food Panda.

The Pumpkin is still struggling to have each month-end meet, but they are still standing strong physically and spiritually. As at November 2022, yearly revenue hit RM 700k and 8 people are in the team.

Our Values

HEALTHY NATION

The Pumpkin was started with a pure intention of providing lower cost healthy food to the public while the ultimate goal is to nurture a healthy nation.

“The more people we serve, the healthier the nation”

PROVIDE FRESH ORGANIC PRODUCES

The Pumpkin sources fresh vegetables and fruits from local organic farms. Keeping them fresh in a cold room and pack them in-store. Beautifully displaying them in chillers with temperature control. It reduces the cost and so the selling price. Dine-in customers tasted great food and buy the ingredients upon checking out. Bringing healthy food to their family dining table.

WHOLE FOOD

The word “makan” or “eat” alone ignites the passion of people of any age group, any ethnicity and any gender. Serving food based on the concept of whole food would be a great stepping stone to healthy generations. The Pumpkin is hoping to educate consumers, telling them that there are too many overly salted, overly sweetened, unhealthy additives in foods we see every day and; healthy food can look drooling and tasty too. Balanced diet is also an element in the menu; with signature dishes (tofu/egg/chicken/fish set) showing eaters how a nutrition balanced meal would look like.

HELPING PEOPLE WITH HEALTH CONCERNS

Throughout the years of operation, it seems that people with health concerns or love ones who are battling with death on bed are the main consumers of organic food in The Pumpkin. Ups and downs of life; wealth or health, of many are seen here. Putting the right products on shelves is a mission. Better quality products not necessarily of higher prices are usually the choices. The pre-procurement effort helps to remove distractions of thousands of similar or misleading products in the market. Narrowing them down to a few good ones, assisting consumers to make great decisions when it comes to price and healthy food.