Apollo Food replacing machines

Saturday October 27, 2012

By ZAZALI MUSA
zaza@thestar.com.my

Liang: ‘We already export to several European countries and the US but in small quantities, and we’ll beef up our efforts to increase our market share there.’

JOHOR BARU: Apollo Food Holdings Bhd plans to replace old machinery with newer equipment as part of its strategy to further strengthen its position in the industry.

Executive chairman and managing director Liang Chiang Heng said that the company was in the midst of calculating how much it would need to spend on the exercise.

“We have yet to come out with the figure but I can tell you that the investment is quite substantial,'' he told StarBizWeek after the company's AGM on Thursday.

Liang said the exercise involved the replacement of production machinery that had been around for more than 10 years as they were no longer economical to run and required higher maintenance.

He said the company would be getting state-of-the-art and fully automated machinery that could improve production capacity and reduce dependency on workers.

“Like other manufacturers in Malaysia, we are also having problems hiring locals as production workers and the only way is to invest in technology,'' Liang said.

The last time Apollo Food had invested in new machines was during the fiscal year ended April 30, 2006, when it spent RM10mil to enhance production capacity.

He said apart from boosting the firm's production, the new investment would see more new products.

Liang said Apollo Food introduced 10 to 15 new products annually, mostly chocolate-coated confectionery items and layer cakes.

He said these included premium products with good growth potential and able to generate better income for the company in the long run.

Liang said Asean countries, China and Japan remained the main export markets for the company, while the African and the Middle Eastern countries offered good growth prospects.

“We already export to several European countries and the US but in small quantities, and we'll beef up our efforts to increase our market share there,'' he said.

Liang said the company currently marketed 50% of its 100 products locally and the balance overseas.

For the financial year ended April 30, 2012, Apollo recorded RM21.74mil in net profit on revenue of RM200.54mil against RM17.85mil and RM176.29mil respectively the previous year.