Sweet venture
After building a presence in the tourist market, local chocolate maker is eyeing the local market
NOT many have the opportunity to refer to their fathers as Willy Wonka. Queenie Teng and Teng Wei Tzyy count among the few.
And the sisters are following in the footsteps of their father.
Building on what their father started, Queenie, 37, and Wei Tzyy, 29, are bringing Harriston – previously better known as Cocoa Boutique – closer to becoming an internationally-known chocolate emporium in Malaysia.
But it wasn’t always so sweet. Queenie recalls that her father, Teng Sze Choong, had little to no support when he decided to open his first Cocoa Boutique retail store in early 2005.
Sze Choong had been a tour guide for a number of years and was very passionate about promoting Malaysia.
“He knew there were tremendous opportunities in Malaysia’s tourism industry. Tourists would always bring back souvenirs. And he would do some trading on-and-off, targeting Malaysian goods,” she says.
He finally settled on building a business in making chocolates, a taste of goodness that he never forgot from his childhood days.
“But at that time, no one supported him. Especially with the hot weather in Malaysia, people laughed and asked why would he want to make chocolates. It was tough times. But he went ahead with that passion anyway,” she shares.
Sze Choong’s venture was one of the early settlers in the chocolate enclave that was taking shape around the Jalan Imbi, Kuala Lumpur, area.
He also started looking into chocolate recipes which incorporated local ingredients such as durian and tongkat ali to share locally grown produce with tourists. These were relatively new flavours at the time and Sze Choong somehow hit the right notes with them.
Queenie says its signature durian chocolate remains a bestseller to this day.
The chocolate maker opened up a few other stores and made a name among the many tourists who made a beeline into the country every year.
Harriston’s five shops receive about 2,500 tourists a day.
“To date, about 8 million tourists from eight countries have come to our stores. And they want to bring our chocolates back to their own place,” she says.
Bringing in change
Queenie had just got off a marketing role in the retail industry before she came on board the company around 2008.
Naturally, she took on the marketing role at Harriston.
But it was a clash of old and new approach to doing business. Their father was used to the traditional way of doing business - passively waiting for foot traffic to fill his stores - and has grown well with the model. Queenie, on the other hand, had ideas for new packaging, branding and the works.
Needless to say, the differences came across as quite a culture shock for both of them.
“It took some time for us to adapt to his way of doing business and for him to accept our suggestions. We had a lot of ups and downs in between but we also learned a lot from him, especially in dealing with suppliers,” notes Queenie.
As Harriston grew, the family started looking into the possibility of setting up their own manufacturing facility.
“Previously, we outsourced the manufacturing of our chocolates. We couldn’t control the quality and the consistency of quality of the products. So we decided to set up our own factory,” says Wei Tzyy.
The factory was completed in 2012 in Shah Alam.
The facility, which produces about 45 tonnes of chocolate products a month, catered to the needs of its stores.
In 2014, Wei Tzyy returned from a short stint in the US to help out in the family business. Her attention was focused on the manufacturing operations of the business.
Over time, the sisters started looking at ways to upgrade the business.
“From the retail side, we started consolidating all our stores and products under the Harriston brand. And we are looking at more marketing efforts to end-customers.
“For the manufacturing side, we are building in a lot of machinery