Our Group’s history can be traced back to the incorporation of White Cafe in 1999, with the intention to provide quality white coffee to Malaysian households and the food services industry, the co-founders and Executive Directors, Mr Goh Ching Mun and Mr Tan Say Yap formulated their own blend of 3-in-1 instant white coffee and commenced manufacturing in 1999.
With more than 10 years of experience in the coffee beverage industry, both our co-founders were instrumental in the growth of the Oldtown Group of companies. They are supported by Mr Lee Siew Heng, our Group Managing Director who played a significant role in implementing the overall vision, strategy and development of the Oldtown Group.
In 1999, we successfully commercialised our instant 3-in-1 coffee mix under the ‘OLDTOWN’ brand name for the retail sector. As at 31 October 2009, our ‘OLDTOWN’ 3-in-1 instant coffee mix was sold in approximately 1,348 retail outlets nationwide in Malaysia, approximately 550 retail outlets in Singapore and approximately 2,100 retail outlets in Hong Kong.
In 2000, we commenced our first export of the ‘OLDTOWN’ brand of 3-in-1 instant coffee mix to Singapore.
In 2001, our subsidiary, White Cafe Marketing commenced operations as the marketing arm for our Group’s beverage products. During the same year, we also expanded our product line to include different variations of our instant coffee mix and have also expanded our export markets to Hong Kong for our instant coffee mix.
In year 2002, White Cafe obtained a HALAL certification from the Islamic Religious Department of Perak for the Group’s beverages. This is part of our Group’s intentions, which is to produce our beverages in accordance with the Islamic law. In the same year, we successfully expanded our nationwide retail distribution of our 3-in-1 instant coffee mix to cover East and West Malaysia through major hypermarkets and supermarkets.
In 2003, we also successfully commercialised our own