M’sian Startup sells fine food in taco cups

The more expensive the food, the smaller part of it may be on your plate. This would be a familiar experience for those who enjoy fine meals.

Sometimes these meals barely fill you up, but they come in small meals because of how expensive the ingredients can be. Furthermore, fine eating is more about the experience: grooming, serving, and enjoying the intricate flavors of food more than just a belly.

Subtracting everything else about the concept except the food itself, Food in cup sizes (FICS) was started by a mother and son who wanted to serve fine snack-sized meals in taco cups.

Bringing a fine meal to picnics

“It started when my mom made a taco cup one afternoon as an afternoon snack for a family that attracted a lot of attention on Instagram,” the founders of FICS shared for the Vulcan Post.

At first they were just making these taco cups to try on their friends, but they started getting more orders and eventually it became fun for them over the weekend during the MCO.

Close up of their food in cups / Picture credited with food the size of cups

“It’s great for picnics and events. If you could finish the box yourself, it could be considered a meal, but you can also share it with friends and family. Taking snack-sized food simply makes sharing easier, ”they explained.

While none of them have professional culinary experience, they are lovers of Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef. “The fine food aspect of our food comes from the techniques we use. The type of food we try to serve is not like truck snacks. For example, our apple crumbles. Those are some fancy things. “

The chicken is baked, the apples are sautéed, and the pizza sauces are cooked slowly as part of their process. Their food may be consumed quickly, but the care and time invested in each taco cup is plentiful.

In Making Their Apple Crushing Cups (Left) and Pizza Cups (Right) / Picture of Merit: Food in Cup Sizes

One thing they struggle with is extending the crispiness of the cups so they don’t get wet quickly when customers have them. And this required almost a whole month only of research and development on shellfish and different methods of preparation.

In the end, a slow baking over low heat and a little oil at the bottom of the cup was their solution to keep these cups crispy for a long time.

They have now managed to keep their cups crispy for 1.5 hours from 5 minutes initially, but would still advise their customers to consume them as soon as possible.

FICS only started in January this year and currently receives an average of about 30 orders per month, most of which are B2C.

So far, they have 3 types of food in cups to choose from, and these are the Taco cup (their bestseller), the Pizza cup and the Apple Crumble cup. Here’s what you’d find in each of their cups:

Cup	Ingredients
Taco	Chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, red cabbage and sour cream.
Pizza	Homemade marinara sauce, cheddar, mozzarella and chicken.
Apple pie	Apples, cinnamon and oats.

Each box comes with 6 cups and costs RM19 per box. They are currently delivering to the Bukit Bintang area and the Lembah Pantai district in Kuala Lumpur, and to the Petaling and Klang districts in Selangor.

On busy weekends, they are placed on orders / credit for the picture: Food In Cup Sizes

A race against time for freshness

Since there are a lot of fresh ingredients that are part of their cups, I can’t prepare them days in advance. Therefore, they always work on a timeline (not a play on words) to take fresh groceries and prepare food in cups on the day of delivery.

“We will marinate and prepare the meat the day before, in order to ensure that the meat is marinated for at least 24 hours. On the day of delivery of the shell, we will bake on low heat in the oven. ”

“In addition, we will prepare greens, sauce and decoration for these cups. Once everything is done, then we will assemble the ingredients and deliver them for delivery, ”they shared with Vulcan Post.

Bringing fine food to the picnic mat / Merits for the picture: Food in cups

Delivery to them is another time difficulty to preserve freshness again, so they will do their best to deliver the cups themselves within 30 minutes after preparation.

The mother-son duo FICS hopes to be able to serve their food at weddings or events as a finger food or appetizer, and want to explore catering, restaurant and cafe supply and other B2B transactions.

These taco cups seem to fit well for catering purposes, as my first impression of them was also that they would do great as an appetizer for fancy parties. While none of the elements that FICS incorporates into cups are new, the combination of fine meals and taco cups makes their offering appealing.