Christopher Quek invested S$250K to launch Spike Durian
Singapore is not short of durian sellers. From roadside stalls piled high with husks to dedicated cafes serving Musang King tarts, the King of Fruits has never been hard to find—during season, at least. But for the other eight months of the year, your options run dry.
That seasonal gap is exactly what Christopher Quek, 48, built Spike Durian to fix. And the origin story? It began with pregnancy cravings—but not his wife’s.
“15 years ago, my wife was pregnant, and ironically, I was the one with the pregnancy cravings,” he said with a laugh. “I was searching desperately for Mao Shan Wang and just couldn’t find it. I ended up at a durian cake shop just to survive on the durian.”
The experience stayed with him for years. So when technology eventually made year-round premium durian possible, Chris decided to take the leap and start Spike Durian, which sells premium Mao Shan Wang every day of the year.
After 10 years of funding others, he wanted in
Chris is, by trade, a venture capitalist. He founded TRIVE, a Singapore-based venture capital firm with roughly US$30 million (S$38.37 million) in assets under management, and has backed notable companies, including ride-hailing app Tada and Charge+, one of Singapore’s largest EV charging networks.
It was through TRIVE that Chris first encountered Agrifreeze, a food tech startup pitching an advanced freezing technology that uses electromagnetic field (EMF) waves to control ice crystal formation.
Unlike conventional blast freezing, which creates large, sharp ice crystals that rupture a food’s cellular structure and degrade texture, aroma, and flavour upon thawing, Agrifreeze’s process produces small, rounded crystals that are three times smaller. The result is what Chris calls “as good as fresh”—food that, once thawed, is largely indistinguishable from its fresh state.
“I looked at them and said, can you blast-freeze durians? Can you make sure you give me fresh durian?” he recalled. “And that was when Agrifreeze said, okay, let’s try.”
It took 18 months of research and development to perfect the Agrifreeze blast-freezing process for durian. Once they did, Chris invested in Agrifreeze and then went a step further by founding Spike Durian in Dec 2024 as a direct-to-consumer delivery venture. His partner, Marcus Choy, 32, who had previously worked at TRIVE, joined him to run operations.
The total investment in Spike Durian was approximately US$200,000 (S$255,810), which Chris describes as one of TRIVE’s smallest bets, against a fund that typically writes cheques of US$5–10 million (S$6.4-12.8 million) for incubators.
For a firm that has backed mobility platforms and EV infrastructure, a premium durian e-commerce shop seems like an unlikely portfolio addition. But Chris sees it as more than a business.
I’ve been seeing and helping so many startup founders for the last 10 years. I realised I’d been missing out on the action.
Christopher Quek
From Pahang to your doorstep
Spike Durian sources exclusively from six plantations in Pahang, Malaysia, which Chris considers to be the home of gold-standard Mao Shan Wang.
Pahang sits at a higher elevation than other durian-producing states, meaning trees get the precise balance of sunlight and rainfall they need, without waterlogging. The trees there are also among the oldest, ranging from 20 to 30 years. “The older the tree, the better the flavour, the more complex,” Chris explained.
The harvesting method matters too. Unlike farms in Thailand and Vietnam, where fruits are cut from the tree early to extend shelf life, Pahang’s plantations wait for durians to fall naturally into nets strung below.
“The farmers know that the best durians are the ones that drop, not the ones that you pre-cut,” Chris said. He added that this natural ripening produces the stronger, more complex flavour profiles that Singaporeans and Malaysians prize, as opposed to the lighter, sweeter taste of Indochina varieties.
Once harvested, the durians are husked and vacuum-sealed in a clean room environment within hours, then transported by a chiller truck to Agrifreeze’s facility in Selangor, where they are blast-frozen for four hours using EMF technology. From there, they are trucked to Spike Durian’s modest 200–300 sqft facility in Singapore—a nine-hour journey with the durians maintained at -28°C—and stored until orders come in.
To keep costs down, Spike Durian holds most of its inventory in Malaysia, only trucking in about a week’s worth of stock at a time to the Singapore facility.
“The cost of actually keeping it in Singapore is quite high, so we only bring sufficient stock for the week itself,” Chris explained. “If it’s sold out, unfortunately, we’ll tell them we have to wait for the next shipment.”
That said, the company benefits from sourcing durians that traditional sellers often reject. Misshapen or “ugly” fruits—those with irregular shapes or fewer chambers—are typically passed over by vendors who rely on displaying whole durians to customers.
But because Spike Durian sells only the flesh in vacuum-sealed boxes, the appearance of the husk makes little difference. This allows the team to negotiate lower prices for fruits that are cosmetically imperfect but otherwise identical in quality.
Spike Durian’s stocks in Singapore are usually adequate for customers to pre-order for next-day delivery. When an order is placed, frozen durians are transferred to a chiller to thaw for approximately 20 hours, then delivered within a four-hour window. By the time the box arrives, the durian is ready to eat—no different, Chris insists, from what you’d get at a stall mid-season.
Each 400g container of Mao Shan Wang comes in sweet or bitter variants and starts at S$45.
Convincing Singaporeans that frozen can be fresh
Overcoming the stigma of “frozen food” was Spike Durian’s first real test.
To test the market, Chris sent 100 boxes to friends and family in Dec and asked them to eat without knowing what they were tasting.
“95% said it was fresh durian,” he recalled. “When we told them it was frozen, they were astounded.”
Soon enough, word of Spike Durian’s Mao Shan Wang spread.
Spike Durian has since sold over 4,000 boxes in its first five months, with its biggest sales days coinciding with Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, and Mother’s Day—occasions that fall entirely outside the durian harvest window and where customers would often get the three-container bundle.
Chris shared that repeat customers now average about 20% of their total customer demographic.
“For the first time, people could finally bring durians to their Chinese New Year table or their Hari Raya spread,” Chris said. “That was really heartwarming to hear.”
One of Spike Durian’s most surprising discoveries has been who is actually buying.
According to Chris, about 25% of its customers are non-Chinese-speaking Singaporeans, many of whom told the company they found traditional durian-buying experiences intimidating or unfamiliar.
“They told us they felt threatened going to a durian seller. The uncle comes out with a cleaver, shouting, and they don’t speak Chinese,” Chris said. “They love that we’re entirely in English, and everything is handled for them.”
The premium packaging has also resonated with customers far more than Chris anticipated.
Traditional durian arrives in cling-wrapped polystyrene boxes stuffed in a red plastic bag—functional, but hardly appears gift-worthy. Conversely, Chris shared that Spike Durian’s presentation targets customers hosting guests or bringing durian as a dessert to a dinner party.
Hard lessons in the cold chain
Running a premium frozen durian business from a 300-square-foot facility is not without its chaos.
Three weeks into launching, a restock shipment from Malaysia arrived on a public holiday. The driver, unable to access the cold chain facility, placed the stock in a conventional freezer out of goodwill, but that instantly compromised the cellular structure of the durian.
We had to throw away 300 boxes because of that. I learned the hard way to cross-check every regional holiday before any truck leaves the plantation.
Christopher Quek
Quality control remains a persistent challenge, too.
Farmers visually inspect each durian before packing, but, by their own admission, are only about 70% accurate as they work through hundreds of durians a day with no automated assistance. When shipments arrive in Singapore, Chris and his team do a second round of visual checks, looking for discolouration or cracks in the vacuum-sealed boxes.
Increasingly, Chris has seen a surge in last-minute buyers. As Spike Durian operates on a pre-order model, he is now building a system to handle on-demand orders—a shift that comes with its own operational challenges.
Looking beyond Singapore
Six months in, Spike Durian is already fielding serious overseas interest.
There are some instances where customers would go the extra mile to enjoy Spike Durian.
Some of its most enthusiastic customers have personally carried frozen durian onto international flights, packing the boxes in insulated bags with dry ice and clearing customs.
One customer even flew to the US on a 20-hour journey and arrived home to find the durian still frozen. Chris helps coordinate these as bespoke concierge requests, talking through timing, packaging, and sealing with customers before they travel.
“They promoted it to their friends around them, and they were so stunned,” he said. “They were like, oh wow, this is from Malaysia.”
Beyond individual customers, Spike Durian is also exploring larger international opportunities.
Chris recently brought Agrifreeze durians to Taiwan, transporting them in dry-ice-packed styrofoam boxes and distributing samples to potential distributors over five days. The response, he said, was overwhelmingly positive.
One Taiwanese distributor told Chris they move 20,000 boxes of Malaysian Mao Shan Wang every month — a figure that genuinely surprised him.
“I thought the Taiwanese may be a little more restricted in their taste,” he admitted. “But no, they are very open-minded.” Given the scale of demand, Spike Durian sees significant potential in supplying Taiwanese brands through a white-label model.
China, by contrast, wants to carry the Spike Durian brand directly—in Mandarin packaging—drawn partly by the trust associated with a Singapore-origin product. Other territories have made enquiries, though Chris is not yet naming them publicly just yet.
The upcoming Jul to Aug harvest peak is where Spike Durian plans to potentially introduce Blackthorn durian—a variant Chris describes as more palatable and beginner-friendly than Mao Shan Wang, and one that beginner durian eaters may actually find more approachable.
The founder expects demand to keep climbing.
Featured Image Credit: Spike Durian
