Traditional dishes taste success online

KUALA LUMPUR－In a factory located in Batang Kali, about 50 kilometers from the Kuala Lumpur city center, Oh Chee Keong, 52, is stirring the gooey maltose concoction incessantly until it becomes thick.

It is one of the complicated procedures in producing traditional confectioneries mua lao and lao huei.

With the relaxed COVID-19"standard operating procedures" and joining the Taobao Spring Festival sales, Oh's Swee Len Food Industries has received overwhelming orders.

"Knowing that these traditional crackers obtained fervent support from the public with the great sales from Taobao, I am sincerely feeling grateful and happy," Oh says.

Spotting the surging trend of shopping online for Spring Festival goods, Alibaba has collaborated with the Selangor state government after noticing the positive response from the public to the recent Baik Selangor 2021-2022 program, featuring a competition of traditional food products, with the winners certified as "good new village products". The selected products being marketed on Taobao have received great support, with a sellout rate of 90 percent during the holiday.

Among the best-sellers, mua lao and lao huei from Oh's company started off as homemade traditional wedding biscuits in Batang Kali.

Mua lao is a sesame-coated cracker and lao huei a crispy rice-coated cracker. The giving of these delicacies symbolizes a blessing of sweet and eternal love to newlyweds.

The business of making the century-old delicacies, now managed by Oh and his wife, still remains true to tradition, striving to retain the authentic tastes of traditional confectionery. Under Oh's rebranding effort, the crackers have moved beyond wedding tradition and become an everyday snack.

"Marching into e-commerce is a way for us to preserve my grandfather's painstaking effort in the craft of this traditional confectionery," Oh says.

Jess Lew, country manager for Alibaba's Tmall World Malaysia, says the new technology and resources that Taobao owns to serve transnational e-commerce platform could assist the long-established local businesses to adapt to the digital times.

Ng Lay Tien, a second-generation member of Samy Bak Kut Teh, says times have changed and businesses have to race in the e-commerce boom.

Bak kut teh is a savory fragrant dish with pork ribs cooked in a complex broth of herbs and spices for hours, and is often served with a bowl of shallot-scented rice.

Local restaurants were dampened by waves of COVID-19 infections and multiple lockdowns in response last year.

Ng Kian Yu, a third-generation member of Samy Bak Kut Teh, noticed that the trend of self-heating instant hotpot could be a turning point for the family business to break through the dine-in limit. He has been working on a convenient, instant self-heating bak kut teh pot.

"Being marketed on Taobao has brought great attention to our self-heating pot," Ng Kian Yu says, adding that people no longer have to dine in restaurants and they can now enjoy the authentic dish whenever and wherever they wish to.

Xinhua