By Lucia Terey John
JOHOR BAHRU: Cooking traditional dishes such as Rendang Tok can be quite a time-consuming and difficult feat, especially for those who have to balance between work and household duties.
With that in mind, local entrepreneur, Noraini Margono, 65, was inspired to come up with 28 types of cooking pastes to expedite and ease the cooking process for various traditional dishes.
She started to set up a small business in 2014 to produce the pastes under the brand “Mak Nanie”; researching the techniques to produce pastes that can last a long time at room temperature without the need for preservatives, and learning about the appropriate packaging and marketing methods.
“I had inherited the recipes from my elders, but because I do not know how to ensure that the pastes would last for a long time, I took it upon myself to study the method from several parties, including the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute and the Department of Agriculture.
“I also took note of the information shared on social media sites such as YouTube to create the pastes,” said Noraini.
In the beginning, she was only able to produce 20 packets of pastes per day using her own kitchen and own utensils.
When demand for her products began to increase, she decided to move her business operations to a shophouse in Taman Tampoi Utama, Skudai.
Subsequently, the company’s productivity began to increase significantly, able to produce 300 packets of pastes for traditional dishes such as Asam Pedas, Laksa Johor, Mee Bandung, Rendang Tok, Briyani Johor and Botok-botok on a daily basis.
Currently, her products are sold in supermarkets in six states, including Perlis, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan and Selangor as well as on the e-commerce platform, Shopee, and the company has also managed to penetrate Singapore’s market.
“I am quite lucky because during the implementation of the movement control order (MCO) last year, the demand had increased by 30 per cent as many people could not leave their homes, so they were forced to cook for themselves.
“My pastes have a distinct advantage in that they do not need to be sauteed and seasoned, just add a little water and raw materials according to the recommended measurement,” said Noraini.
She added that she had passed her cooking skills and the business to her son, Mohammad Hafiz Aman Eliyaz, 27. Moving forward, Noraini plans to expand the market for her products to Brunei and Saudi Arabia, saying that there are many fans of Malay traditional dishes in the countries. – Bernama
