Nicholas Tse: Being a celebrity boss is not as easy as you think

Hong Kong actor Nicholas Tse had an early start in showbiz, debuting as an actor at the age of 19. After saving up all the money that he had earned from acting, the young thespian then invested his money in property. 

In recent years, the 38-year-old has branched out into the food and beverage business, from hosting the culinary travel show Chef Nic, to starting his bakery business and releasing his own line of cookies and snacks.

However, his 'Chef Nic’ cookies have been placed under public scrutiny a couple of times. Back in 2018, the cookies were temporarily pulled from shelves after it was revealed that they had five times more sugar than labelled. Then, in January this year, reports alleged that a certain range of cookies contained carcinogens.

​In a recent interview, Nicholas brought up the topic of his controversial cookie line, and shared that running a business as a celebrity is not as easy as everyone thinks.

“For example, two months ago, it was reported that 58 brands of cookies were found to contain carcinogens. My cookies were included in the list as well, but the report did not specify what is the actual amount of carcinogens one has to ingest for it to be detrimental to their health. In fact, our cookies have always scored well when it comes to food safety tests and have been found to contain one of the lowest levels of carcinogens among all the products tested. It might be because of my celebrity status, but all the media reports named my cookie line in their headlines, making it a bit unfair,” he said.