Looking after business: (from left) Tai and Kow.
JOHOR BARU: Some cookie sellers and suppliers are opting to absorb the extra cost for their products in a bid to increase sales ahead of the festive season.
“If we were to sell the cookies based on the increase in the cost of the ingredients, the price of one jar of cookies would have gone up by between RM2 and RM3 compared to last year,” said operation director of a cookie factory and wholesaler, Johnson Tai.
“This will surely lead to a drop in sales. As such, we decided to only increase between RM1 and RM1.50. We absorb the extra cost so that customers can still have reasonably priced cookies for the festive season,” he said.
Tai said the cost of producing cookies had increased significantly following the rise in the price of basic ingredients such as eggs, flour and oil.
Apart from the rising price of ingredients, he said the cost for manpower, appliances and containers had also gone up this year.
“We were hoping to see a boom in sales at the end of this year as Chinese New Year falls in January, just a few weeks after Christmas.
“Unfortunately, this has not materialised. We were getting many orders between the months of September and October but the demand has dropped since.”
He believed that many shops that had received their cookie supply from him were still trying to finish their existing stock.
“We hope to see more sales next month. By then, the sales for Christmas would have been over and our clients would need to restock for Chinese New Year,” he said.
He said that the company, based in Selangor, supplies cookies throughout Malaysia as well as to countries such as Australia and Singapore.
“The sale of cookies to Singapore has dropped but there is an increase in demand coming from Johor. I believe this is because the border is now open and Singaporeans can buy straight from the shops in Johor Baru.”
Kow Teck Phing, who sells home-made cookies, said that he opted to maintain last year’s price of the cookies to avoid losing customers.
“I have no choice but to keep the same price as it will be difficult for me to sell the cookies if it is too expensive. It is not ideal but it beats losing customers. The demand for cookies is also low this year, even lower compared to during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the past two years,” he said.
He believed that many people were also opting to make their own cookies at home as a way to cut costs.
Another cookie seller, Tan Wee Kiat, said that he was still contemplating whether to continue his business for Chinese New Year.
“There is a significant drop in demand this year, so I am unsure if I want to continue baking cookies for Chinese New Year.”
He said the increase in the cost of basic ingredients had put him in a dilemma.
“If I were to increase the price of my cookies, I may risk losing customers but if I do not do that, I will suffer losses,” he said.
