Lee Kum Kee sets sights on halal mart

The world's leading producer of authentic Chinese sauces plans to invest further into becoming a key supplier in halal sauce

LEE Kum Kee Co Ltd (LKK), the world's leading producer of authentic Chinese sauces, plans to tap the halal market, following its strong success with the Chinese market around the globe.

The 120-year-old brand from Hong Kong, best known for its oyster sauce products, is today well-received around the world, mainly by the Chinese.

"We basically sell everywhere in the world where you can find Chinese restaurants. It's almost like, wherever there is a Chinese restaurant, there's LKK," chairman Eddy Lee Wai Man told Business Times in an interview in Kuala Lumpur.

As the company continues to grow, it wants to move its focus beyond the Chinese market.

"Right now, our business is still very much concentrated on Chinese restaurants because that is our core business. But as we expand around the world, one of our major driving force is to be able to provide LKK to everyone.

"It's an ambitious goal, but what it means is that we need to learn and adapt and become the community even more so than ever before. We are adapting ourselves to the global scene," added its chief executive officer Stephen Lui.

Lui said Malaysia has become an increasingly important market for LKK as it sets its sights on the halal market.

"In this part of the world, halal is important and we are learning a lot already. We are going to invest further into becoming a key supplier in halal sauce ... not just opening up the market in Malaysia to the halal users but also to the region and the world. That, to us, is very key," he added.

LKK today sells its products to about 100 countries. Its biggest market is China, which accounts for about a quarter of the company's revenue.

It is indeed impressive that the LKK brand has managed to stay on top for over a century, given the sea of copycat products available in the market.

Lee, who is from the fourth generation of the family-owned business, attributes this to the company's long heritage of know-how in making sauces, as well as its unwavering focus on innovation and quality.

"Many brands today survive only a while because they service a small segment of the market. But innovation is important and at LKK, we have a strong research and development team in several countries, including Malaysia, who see to improving our products and making it relevant to consumers in (different) parts of the world. It is important that we continue to check consumer trends," Lui said.

LKK also works closely with restaurant chefs.

It has numerous consulting chefs from around the world working with it to develop new products to serve different generations of consumers.

To ensure consistent quality, something that Lee puts heavy emphasis on, LKK buys its raw materials and does all its extraction and fermentation processes within the group.

"You know, brands come and go and sometimes you take a shortcut because you feel you want to profit more from cheaper materials. Those brands normally don't survive 120 years," Lui said.

Though it has been family-owned for four generations now, the Lee family hires professionals like Lui to run the business.

Lui, as chief, is there to map out LKK's growth strategy and ensure that it is run like a multinational corporate.

Lee is adamant that the company remains family-owned and has no plans for it to become public listed.

"We don't have a reason to do that. There's no immediate need for us to look for additional money for investment or acquire somebody else's brand or know-how, because we could do all that in-house. For us, we already run like a public company," he said.

LKK's growth over the years has been rapid. It has consistently doubled the business every three years, Lui said, declining however to provide revenue figures.

Lui said the Lee family pockets "enough revenue to help maintain the lifestyle that they want" and then put the rest back into the company.

"We can double our business every three years, so that makes us fulfill the criteria of organic growth. It's important that if you can grow within, then you don't need to go and acquire somebody else to help you to look bigger.

"All the company needs to fuel further growth is to have more products, more talented people, better training, more loyal customers and new markets," he added.

In 1980, the company had only 25 people working for it worldwide. Today, the number has increased to 4,500.