Honestbee delivers groceries within the hour. Here’s a look at its office and culture.

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“Are you sure we’re at the right place?” I asked my colleague, as we piled into a small, stuffy elevator in an old industrial building along Alexandra Road. The building looked nothing like what I had imagined it to be, from the pictures of the Honestbee office I found online.

“Trust me, we are,” he said. We got off at the fourth floor, and made our way to the said unit.

“To Bee or not to Bee,” read the neon signage outside one of them.

The entrance to the Honestbee office. Photo credit: Sim Yanting

Stepping into the office was like entering a different world altogether.

The reception counter and waiting area open to the main working space. Not pictured: To the immediate left was a series of rooms including the meeting rooms, a gaming room, and a gym. To the immediate right were the theatre and cafe. The team moved to the current office late last year when they outgrew their previous one. Photo credit: Sim Yanting

Once inside, vibrant pops of colour contrasted against the neutral tones that formed the base palette of the open-concept industrial-themed office space.

We caught a glimpse of the iconic Bearbrick wall before Nicholas Lim, regional PR manager, invited us into a meeting room to begin the office tour.

The 12,000 square-foot office is home to 130 full-time employees. Headquartered in Singapore, Honestbee has offices in seven other cities – Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. It has more than 160 full-time employees globally.

It is hard to imagine that just a year ago, the company was a mere team of eight.

Officially launched in Singapore in July 2015, Honestbee is an on-demand online grocery concierge service. It’s easy to dismiss it as another new kid on the block in the saturated online grocery market, if not for its US$15 million venture backing from Silicon Valley.

Honestbee prides itself to be a “social impact business” that focuses on three core pillars – customers, bees, and partners.

The Honestbee office

The Honestbee culture

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