THE feeding of hungry young minds' appetite for knowledge is the basis of the concept behind Hungry Caterpillars pre-school. What is now a platform to franchise pre-schools around the region began life as a simple daycare centre in 1999. This was driven by the vision of executive director Samuel Wong, who was very impressed with the project-based learning approach, an American child development concept. He was so taken with these ideas that he felt the desire to "give a stronger academic edge" to the daycare programme.

He worked out a programme and franchising system and launched it just this year. Hungry Caterpillars pre-school now handles children from 18 months to six years old.

"Over the past seven years we've perfected the programme and now see it's time to spread our wings in the franchise business and expand into the region," said Mr Wong.

The concept is a very flexible one, he explains. Different programmes with various merchandising options can be adapted to the countries the company is expanding into. These include countries in South-east Asia like Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, as well as India, China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea.

The main difference to other pre-school systems is that Hungry Caterpillars changes its curriculum every year, rather than using the fixed conventional courses that most schools run. The company also realises the importance of merchandising to any franchise plan. Products it offers include books, learning aids, stationery and educational toys, and it even has educational comics in the pipeline.

These are principles that Mr Wong, a former creative director with one of the big regional advertising companies, knows well. The importance of an attention-grabbing icon like Hungry Caterpillars is that all these various product lines can be based on it and used as a platform for growth, he said.

Hungry Caterpillars is progressing quickly with its franchising programme. Mr Wong declines to give exact figures but says the company has posted more than 60 per cent annual profit growth since it set up in 1999. It is already working with a few master franchisees in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, which in turn have from 60 to 100 single franchisees under them. It plans to expand to the Philippines and Taiwan as well as further afield to the Middle East and Eastern Europe in the next stage of its development.

The company's recent win of an international quality award is further endorsement of Hungry Caterpillars' programmes. The company was awarded the Business Initiative Directions QC 100 TCM award earlier this year. The only other Asian company to receive the award was India's Reliance Energy.

Further plans ahead are for the company to move into doing international baccalaureate programmes for primary school level. Producing educational toys, various other icons in the merchandising line, and maybe even setting up a children's hub with themed restaurants are other ideas Mr Wong is looking into. He aims to give the company at least five years of building up a solid foundation before possibly thinking about a listing.

"Building an icon that children can remember and relate to was a key part of developing the Hungry Caterpillars concept," said Mr Wong of the company's initial years. The imagery is carried even further to the parent company level which is called Learning Cocoon. All the various product lines and learning aids come under this parent company and future plans for comics and other products down the line will also come under this umbrella.

"It is exciting to see business generating revenue but at the same time reaching a lot of people's hearts," said Mr Wong. "In my mind there is no idea that is too crazy as long as it can achieve results," he adds.

Children are so much more trend-setters nowadays, Mr Wong observed and this is why he sees much potential for growth in this sector. This can be seen in companies like Disney putting out many more icons now than in the past to take advantage of this. Hungry Caterpillars is certainly ravenous for growth and with the right development process, looks set to fly.