A lot is going on with AI. Here at Grain, we've been learning a ton, mostly by building. Most of what we've built didn't come from our engineers, but from people across the business who are closest to the problems. Engineering still provides the infrastructure underneath: data access, shared tools, and a way to ship, but capacity is no longer the bottleneck. Projects that took weeks take days. Tools that would have gone to a vendor get built in-house, by the people who'll actually use them.
Empowered with AI tools, the people who understand a problem are best placed to solve it.
A dedicated channel and regular show-and-tell sessions turn one person's build into something the rest of the team can learn from, and be inspired by.
Anyone can generate code now. Knowing what's good enough, and what's worth shipping, is the harder part.
Encourage exploration, open up the connectors, lift usage caps. Small frictions add up, and they are what end up stifling creativity and innovation.
We've cycled through models and interfaces in the span of months. The tool we reach for keeps moving with every new development, but the problem we're solving stays.
And here's some of what we've built:
Agents sit inside the interfaces teams already use: WhatsApp groups and Slack threads. They listen, gather facts, connect patterns, and act, without anyone in the middle.
Pulls sales and customer analytics. Posts daily feedback summaries. Looks up order details for live ops.
Dispatchers track every delivery from a single dashboard and live map. Delivery specialists use our in-house mobile app that streams their live location, and customers get their own tracking link to follow along.
| Event | Status | Specialist | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R5735 | Delivered | Han | Use loading dock at basement B2. Contact ops coordinator on arrival. | |
| R5736 | Picked up | Sarah | Use loading bay at basement. Call security before arrival. | |
| R5737 | Assigned | Marcus | Goods lift only — building security to escort. | |
| R5738 | Delivered | Priya | Deliver to LT27 — host meeting outside the venue. | |
| R5739 | Picked up | Daniel | Park at L2 carpark; head to reception for access card. | |
| R5740 | Delivered | Han | Drop off at L1 mailroom. Receiver: Wei Ling, ext 2104. | |
| R5741 | Assigned | Aisyah | Lift 3 to L12. Ask reception for the marketing pod. | |
| R5742 | Picked up | Wei Lun | Service lift only — concierge will hold doors. | |
| R5743 | Delivered | Trisha | Drop at pantry on L7. Day pass arranged with security. | |
| R5744 | Assigned | Karan | Enter via Killiney Road side gate. Setup in L2 board room. | |
| R5745 | Delivered | Sarah | Use service lift A. Visitor pass left at the L1 turnstile. | |
| R5746 | Picked up | Marcus | Park at visitor bay 4. Setup in the Atlas pod on L3. | |
| R5747 | Assigned | Priya | Drop at L19 pantry. Receiver: Daphne, ext 1903. | |
| R5748 | Delivered | Daniel | Side entrance off Church St. Concierge will escort up. | |
| R5749 | Picked up | Aisyah | Use cargo lift via B1 loading dock. Security to check ID. |
Sales, production, fulfilment, and finance share one screen we built and own. Deeper insights from data that used to live across multiple BI tools and spreadsheets.
B2B is pacing at 99% of target ($6.7M of $6.8M) with momentum from larger buffet orders. Next month's pipeline is thin at 14%, so proposals need to go out this week. AR aging $1.2M past month close is worth a chase, and NPS dipped 6 points on portion feedback at large events.
CRM data sits next to every email thread, synced live with our database to personalise outreach and track deals. We layered more on top: Slack integration for daily pipeline alerts, Google Sheets for performance tracking, and more.
Hi Daryl,
Could you put together a tasting menu proposal for ~120 pax on Friday the 29th? We'll be hosting our regional partners at the new HQ and would love to repeat the format from last quarter.
Same range as before should be fine. Happy to hop on a call if easier.
Thanks,
Sarah
Create magic for customers
Sales reps enter a budget and a guest count, and the menu generates to fit. Swap courses, filter for diets, shuffle for variety. Quote prep that took half a day now takes minutes.
Designers used to wrangle website builders, fighting their fonts and layout limits. Now they translate their own vision live, in hours instead of weeks. More campaigns ship, thousands of eyeballs on every one.
Come on a tiny journey of self-discovery, for your taste buds.
Background on every dish plus how to talk about it with clients. What used to sit buried in a doc now lives on an in-house site, ready when a client asks.
The blue isn't food colouring. It's natural butterfly pea flowers steeped during cooking, finished with shallots, coriander and our supergarlicfied oil. Adds colour to a buffet line.
Two kinds of garlic. Confit garlic slow-cooked into a thyme-infused oil for the mellow sweetness, plus fried garlic for the kick. Tossed with linguine, slow-baked cherry tomatoes and fresh thyme. Vegetarian.
Linguine tossed in our houseblend laksa rempah with dried shrimp and a touch of coconut cream. All the flavour of a bowl of laksa, but built to hold up over a long lunch.
A dish our chef built for his fiancée, who was craving honey mustard chicken. The original recipe used a mustard with no halal version, so he tested combinations till he landed on hot english plus dijon. That's the duo. Chicken thigh baked in the marinade and served with maple soy baked potato.
Our signature since 2016. We've reworked it many times over the years as tastes change and as we've scaled to bigger volumes with new equipment. Show clients the photos of how it's evolved if they want the story.
A collab dish with the Michelin-awarded Hjh Maimunah. Lemongrass sambal-marinated chicken in their masak merah sauce, layered with cardamom, cinnamon, star anise and kaffir lime leaf. Sweet with a touch of spice.
Our halal siew mai with minced chicken, shrimp, shiitake and fragrant oil. The dim sum staple that travels well and pleases everyone.
Chilli crab sauce with real crab, squid and prawn, packed into a soft pau. A signature in pau form, plays especially well with international guests.
A pau filled with fragrant yam paste. Vegetarian and almost dessert-like. The quiet favourite for anyone who grew up on yam pau.
An infusion of orange-scented rose water, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf. Floral and aromatic, holds up at room temperature so it works for long lunches.
Tightly rolled Taiwanese oolong with a honeysuckle fragrance. Our most popular tea and 100% sugar free. The premium tea pick when clients ask for something less ordinary than English breakfast.
Freshly brewed Arabica blend. The default coffee that nobody complains about.
Our most popular fish dish. Dory in a garlic cream sauce we build lighter than most, so it doesn't get jelak. Layered with plum-poached cherry tomato, wilted spinach, sundried tomato and black olives. Kid-friendly and a safe pick for any crowd.
Dory in a Thai-Nyonya assam pedas with lemongrass, ginger flower and laksa leaf, finished with tamarind for the tang. Served over eggplant, okra and cherry tomato. Aromatic without going full Peranakan heat. The fish for clients who want SEA flavours without the fire.
Dory in a bright lemon-butter sauce with capers, dill and sundried tomato. Tangy and a bit different, the pick for clients who want a more unique flavour.
A classic caesar normally doesn't include cherry tomato or egg, but we added both to make it more wholesome and filling. Romaine tossed in our housemade caesar dressing with crisp ciabatta croutons and shaved parmesan. Pairs with most mains, especially Western spreads.
Korean bibimbap inspired but without the rice. Five-spiced tau kwa for the protein, with baked shiitake, blanched spinach, Korean beansprout and broccoli florettes tossed in sesame oil and finished with toasted sesame. Plant-based protein that doesn't lean heavy and starchy like some vegetarian mains.
Our everyday salad. Tricolour quinoa, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes and mesclun in a roasted sesame dressing. Vegetarian and light. Most clients reach for this first when they want something familiar that goes with everything. Can be customised with add-on smoked salmon or piri piri chicken.
Egg mayo done right. We mix soft-yolk eggs into the chunkier hard-boiled base for that konbini (Japanese convenience store) texture, with French butter and a hint of dijon. Always a safe-bet sandwich.
Cold-smoked salmon with a caper and dill cream cheese, on charcoal and wholemeal bread. The sandwich for premium high tea spreads.
An upgraded PB&J that stays crunchy by the time it reaches the client. Our housemade peanut butter mixed with white chocolate for the crunch, similar to Dubai chocolate texture but in a sandwich. Layered with our punchy strawberry jam. We tested 15 to 20 versions to land on the right hold.
Our take on cereal prawn, with rolled oats folded in alongside the classic butter egg floss. We tested this obsessively because most cereal prawn out there is soggy and we weren't having that. Shell-on prawns stay crunchier but are a pain for guests to peel; shell-off prawns leak moisture and soften the cereal. We worked through the trade-off to keep ours crunchy. The prawn dish clients order again and again.
A Cajun seafood stew with mussels, prawns, flower squid and parrotfish over a tomato-paprika base built on fennel and deglazed with white grape vinegar. The seafood centrepiece when clients want bold flavour and something that looks generous on the line.
Mussels, prawns and sliced tako in a Thai-leaning sambal lifted by kaffir lime leaf. Bright and hot. The seafood dish for clients who want SEA flavour with proper kick.
A signature for years. Four vegetables, broccoli, potato, carrot and eggplant, roasted in our cajun oil till the carrots go sweet, the broccoli chars, and the eggplant soaks up the spice. The vegetable side that's almost always the safest call. Vegan.
Our homemade lemon-tahini hummus topped with roasted cauliflower and sliced fennel, properly seasoned and tender, not burnt or over-charred like you often get. Dusted with pink peppercorn and fennel seed. Vegan.
Not celery, not lettuce, celtuce. A Chinese stem vegetable our chefs picked over the usual leafy greens because the texture is more interesting. Braised in a silky ginger white sauce with black fungus, finished with goji berry, coriander and fried tau kwa cubes for protein. Vegan and allergen-friendly.
