1971The barter
Brick and Mortar
It began in a provision shop in Singapore, where Eric Tan entered into barter deals with Indonesian businessmen: his goods for their bird's nest. That trade became a career.
Our story
Purveyors of the purest bird's nest since 1971.
What follows happened to one family, in order.
1986The leap
A factory built on a refusal
Demand for bird's nest far outran supply, and suppliers began bleaching nests to stretch what they had. Eric could not vouch for what he was passing on, so he took the risk and built his own cleaning factory in Singapore, where every nest was cleaned by hand rather than chemically whitened.
The company still turns on that decision.
1989The expansion
Our own houses
To hold the source as closely as the cleaning, Eric began building swiftlet houses of his own, first in Indonesia, then Malaysia and Thailand. Purpose-built, weatherproof and monitored, they hold the conditions swiftlets choose to nest in, so a single house may be harvested year after year.
2009The innovation
48 Senoko Drive
As competitors moved operations offshore to cut costs, Eric bought a standalone food factory and kept the work in Singapore. The line was fitted with European automated machinery for bottling, and Masterdon Swiftlets Resources Pte Ltd was incorporated.
2011The group
A group takes shape
Masterdon and its associates came to hold swiftlet houses across Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, together with three processing workshops. ISO 22000, HACCP and Halal accreditation followed. Every incoming supply still passes our own cleaning and quality check in Singapore before it goes anywhere.
2021The next generation
ZHEN, and a house that speaks
Kara Arissa Tan grew up in the factory, and by twelve she could hand clean a nest herself. She read China & Globalisation at King's College London, then came back to run the houses and the factories.
Her father had refused to hide what went into the nest. She saw no reason to hide how it was made. ZHEN was founded in 2021 to sell under the house's own name and to show every step of the work — collecting, cleaning, drying, checking, packing.
