Munchy’s does Malaysia proud

THE popularity of MUNCHY’S has seen the Malaysian snack being munched in more than 50 countries around the world. The business, run by five brothers, started with just a wafer stick machine in 1991.

“Munchy’s brand mission is to produce all kinds of fun-eating snacks for every home all over the world,” said chief executive officer C.K. Tan. “We are trying to use Malaysia as a base and build Munchy’s into a world brand, instead of seeing more foreign brands coming into our country.”

Tan and his brothers have gone through tough times in bringing up the brand, especially in 1996 when the local market was saturated with many other big brands.

“It took us about 10 years to grow Munchy’s into one of the top brands in Malaysia. Now our mission and vision in the next 10 years is to grow Munchy’s into a world brand,” Tan said.

“We will allocate more funds into marketing to grow each overseas market in a big way in the next 10 years.”

Tan, who foresaw the importance of branding after he joined the company in 1994, started a re-branding exercise in 2002. The company promptly brought in top branding consultants, who re-designed the logo with the distinctive colours of Munchy’s red and white.

“Munchy’s brand value is to bring fun into people’s lives and this has been our main focus for the past six years. Munchy’s is a very catchy name. It comes from the word munch. Our brand is very lively as you can see from our product packaging,” Tan said.

He added that a lot of innovation went into the design and packaging of Munchy’s products.

“I believe everything starts from the product. You have to have a very good product and ...we put a lot of innovative ideas into designing the products from the packaging to brand image, the shape and weight of the products, basically from all aspects,” he said.

The Tan brothers believe in continuous product development.

“We spend three years to innovate a product and keep modifying the quality and packaging. Until today, we still keep thinking on how to make the existing products better. It took us more than 10 years to make Munchy’s Lexus the most saleable biscuit sandwich product in Malaysia,” Tan said. - The Star