Malaysia
Malaysia’s Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), an agency of the Malaysian Government introduced a range of new products at Gulfood 2014 under the brand “FELDA Best”, a brand developed to market the FELDA settler produce internationally.

A selection of frozen traditional Malaysian products such as aloo curry puff, sweet potato cake, tapioca cake and sambal fried bun were on show, and marked the first of the company’s products to be promoted internationally.

FELDA assistant settler’s development officer Norliza Othamn explained to Caterer that the company already works with Lulu hypermarket and was at the show to introduce themselves to other buyers.

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Othamn said: “We are here to introduce ourselves to other buyers; maybe not just in Dubai but other places in the world. The main objective of FELDA in the future is to market our products internationally all over the world. The producers of our products are all Muslims and the products are 100% halal; this is the place where halal food is very much needed and demanded so we’ll do it here first.”

Othamn explained that another objective of the company is to “eradicate poverty in Malaysia”.

She added that there are currently over 100,000 families in FELDA and they are encouraged to be entrepreneurs so that they can develop business themselves.

She said: “Around 35,000 settlers venture into entrepreneurship and from that about 10% are already quite advanced; FELDA chooses the best products and we develop them so they can be marketed internationally,” pointing out that the seven on display at the stand are examples of the work of FELDA Best.

FELDA group chairman Tan Sri Haji Mohd Isa Dato' Haji Abdul Samad said: “Gulfood will be important for FELDA to identify and establish networking with potential trading partners, distributors and retailers both in the gulf region and globally. Malaysian food producers, retailers, manufacturers and service providers should expect a productive week of business trading and relationship building with Gulfood visitors.”

FELDA was initially established to manage the resettlement of economically disadvantaged people from rural locations in areas planted with rubber and palm oil to facilitate the growing of cash crops.

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