ONE positive outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic is the greater awareness among consumers on supporting small local businesses.

It has helped some hard-pressed eatery owners who sell ready-to-cook meal ingredients or beverages to be enjoyed at home.

Some products have been well-received, enabling owners to recoup some losses to pay their debts.

Patrick Cheng, who operated MyElephant Thai restaurants since 2007 sold meat patties and marinated meats that customers can cook at home.

His two restaurant outlets could not make any income once the movement control order (MCO) was implemented last year, and he ran into a six-figure debt.

Cheng, 42, had to close his restaurants, as did the whole food and beverage sector during the strict MCO last year. When movement restrictions were eased, he reopened only one outlet and laid of 16 employees.

The easing of restrictions which lasted a short while before dine-ins were again banned, did not help boost business, and he closed shop in December, laying off another 16 employees. 

“I didn’t want to borrow money and ask for donations. How many times can people lend you money? And how many times will people be sympathetic enough to donate?

“I decided to use my skills and experiences in the kitchen, so I produced pork burger patties and lemongrass chicken to sell,” said Cheng.

He launched a promotional campaign on February 26 and worked 18 hours a day to produce the meat products. 

“We have received very good feedback. But because it is manual production, we can’t handle more than 300 orders. 

“An order is about 3kg. If we have to deal with 30 orders a day, we will produce 100kg of meat. 

“Customers have criticised our delayed deliveries, we were once accused of being a scam,” Cheng said. 

To keep costs low, Cheng turned to others in the F&B business for help by borrowing a kitchen as a workspace for his meat products.

Although the products have been well-received, Cheng is realistic and knows he cannot depend on continued orders to keep the business afloat. 

“I didn’t dare rent a place to work. I am unsure how many customers will repeat their orders from me, or for how long the product can be sold. 

“But I am focused on working hard to repay my debts within a year,” Cheng said.

Social media has helped food and beverage entrepreneurs greatly and without it, surviving the pandemic would be much harder.

For Espressolab owner Joshua Liew, being unable to sell coffee in his stores meant finding new ways to get the beverage to consumers.

He turned to social media, appealing to consumers to buy his ground coffee “steepbru” sachets as a way to help the company go through this difficult period.

Liew took an open and heartfelt approach, writing an explanation about how the local brand struggled under the pandemic.

“My employees were willing to defer or reduce their salaries, with the understanding that when business improves, we will compensate them. 

“Personally, I had no salary for the longest time ever. We dug into our little reserves to do whatever we can to ensure the company and our livelihoods survives,” he wrote.

He said he didn’t expect Malaysia to extend the various MCO restrictions again and again till this year. 

Liew’s plan is to sell 10,000 boxes of Espressolab’s steepbru coffee sachets, with 25 sachets per box, by using the power of social media to reach as many potential customers as possible.

In three days, he received orders for more than 4,000 boxes of the coffee.

The earnings will be used to maintain the daily expenses of his cafe chain, including paying employees’ salaries and rental.

Liew said his appeal was not the same as seeking donations, but aimed at urging people to support a local small business by buying its products.

He said 80% of the sales has been able to cover the salaries of 10 employees’ salaries in February. 

There has been one snag however. The orders, which were overwhelming, caused delays in packing the coffee sachets in time, which resulted in many customers not receiving their orders within the scheduled time.

There were complaints, but Liew said he was also moved by the customers showed patience and told him that they didn’t mind the delays as they wanted to help his business. – March 22, 2021.