MAKER OF LIA SURI DELICIOUS CHILLI SAUCE EYES SOUTHEAST ASIA MARKETS

By Muhamad Adzhar Tajuddin

TAIPING, Nov 11 (Bernama) - -  The  “mee goreng” and fried “koay teow” business at the night market that requires chilli sauce as one of the main ingredients prompted entrepreneur Norlia Jaafar, 53, to produce the product on a large scale.

Who would have thought that the move ended up being the starting point of her business journey under the Lia Suri Delicious brand for the past 14 years, and it being so successful she now harbours hopes of exporting it to countries in the region.

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"When (a product has) many uses, then the cost is also high. So, to save on the cost, I decided to learn to make homemade chilli sauce at home," she told Bernama at her workshop located in Kampung Batu Tegoh, Simpang, here.

Without looking back, Norlia was determined to spend RM20,000 in capital to rent a workshop equipped with some business equipment in the Nibong Tebal area in Penang. "Around 2011, I rented a workshop and with business capital, I bought equipment such as a boiler, chilli grinder and other equipment to produce chilli sauce on a larger scale," she said.

Norlia said that in the nine years of operation, her company was able to produce about 400 to 500 kg of chilli sauce a day based on requests and orders either online or purchased directly by customers.

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However, the sky was not always blue and Norlia faced challenges and had to stop for a while during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the setback, Norlia did not lose heart and decided to return to his hometown in Kampung Batu Tegoh, Simpang, here and rebuild the business on her family's inheritance land in early February 2020.

Personal savings of RM150,000 were used to open a workshop equipped with three main parts - processing, packaging and production.

"Since rebuilding the business here, I have been able to market around 1.5 tonnes of this chilli sauce product, equivalent to 1,500 bottles at a price of RM6. This sudden increase (in sales) happened after I used social media platforms especially TikTok to increase income.

"It is indeed the social media platform that has helped us a lot to get customers from all over the country in addition to the conventional market which is focused on small traders and hawkers around Perak, Penang and Kedah," she said.

Commenting on the speciality of her chilli sauce, she said in addition to the reasonable price,  the product is also produced from natural ingredients consisting of dried chillies and garlic obtained every two days from the wholesaler. "I never use chilli powder or processed ingredients, instead we use original raw ingredients obtained from wholesalers here (Taiping)," she added.

Norlia said that in addition to chilli sauce, her company also produces products such as tomato sauce, sweet soy sauce, sweet spicy soy sauce, oyster sauce and “bidara” soap with prices starting from RM5.50 to RM8.

Commenting on future plans, she expressed hope for help from any relevant agency to help her expand her business to Southeast Asian countries. "At the moment, I had only received help from the Perak Department of Agriculture once. That contribution was given more to the repairs of the workshop. I hope that with what I have, I can open the eyes of any agency to help expand this business to regional countries," she said.

-- BERNAMA