How PichaEats Empowers Kuala Lumpur’s Refugee Community Through Food

PichaEats is a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based social enterprise in the food industry, focused on supporting the city’s large refugee community. PichaEats partners with refugee chefs to cook and package meals based on the chefs’ personal recipes, and sells and delivers those meals to individuals and catered events across the city. On this episode we spoke with Kim Lim, who alongside co-founders Suzanne Ling and Lee Swee Lin transformed PichaEats from a college service project into a self-sustaining business that has delivered more than 350,000 meals and partnered with 35 refugee chefs. Kim shared moving stories about the displaced individuals with whom PichaEats has partnered, and discussed PichaEats’ growth path and strategic vision, the challenges of running a social enterprise through COVID-19, and the status of refugees in Malaysia. She also shared some juicy details about the biryani, lamb-stuffed eggplant, and chicken mandi that have made PichaEats famous.