Sydney Cake House in Malaysia produces a wide variety of baked and frozen goods such as croissants, puffs, bread rolls and cakes. For these, the company focuses on products with Malaysian ingredients, together with western-style baked goods where it creates fusion style East meet West products.
Sydney Cake House has become well-known for its Mak’Cik™ Shell Curry Puff – a filled, frozen puff pastry product looks like a shell
Sydney Cake House bakery’s new, second production facility is situated near Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, in an industrial zone especially for the food industry. All the companies here produce foods in accordance with the Halāl standard. Companies receive a corresponding certificate only when specifications are complied with and the foods conform to Islamic dietary rules, and this has been verified by an external audit. It is the only way in which it is possible to supply the corresponding products to major clients, e.g. airlines or the food retail, since 60% of the population of around 32 million are Muslims, and Islam is Malaysia’s Major religion.
Jenny Chuang, Managing Director of Sydney Cake House bakery, recognized this market and Asia’s growing demand for baked products at a very early stage. She entered the baking sector in 1982 and saw the many opportunities as well as the potential for growth. Jenny Bee supported the family to expand a bakery, continued her education accordingly, and attended various seminars and training sessions to obtain information about baked goods production and the development of ever more new products.
The grand opening
The beginnings
Initially, the company supplied fresh baked products daily to customers such as school canteens, factories and cafeterias. The bakery capacity became too small as time went by, because customer numbers steadily increased and demand constantly rose. The bakery also expanded its product range. A new building was needed, so the company bought a new production facility in 1991. All products made in the new production was using Swiss manufacturer Rondo included European-style baked goods as well as the company’s own creations.
The company’s success was sustained and Jenny Chuang, supported by her family members, focused on enlarging the product range to allow further growth. The company provide frozen, preproof, prebake and fully baked frozen options for customer to choose from. Construction and move in of the second production facility followed in 2015, around 40 km from the first production unit, on a green field site at the Taman Perindustrian Pulau Indah industrial zone in Selangor. The company’s own Mak’Cik™ brand continue to be developed. The workforce of around 120 staff at the new location also made private label products. The Demand continue to grow, especially for Halāl products from China.
One of the main production line for the new production facility is from Rademaker, Netherlands. As Managing Director Jenny Chuang explains: “We see Rademaker as a partner.” The company offers good quality as well as good service in Asia Region. In addition, as Rademaker’s representative and local partners Mr David Chong, General Manager of Firmtec Engineering, support the bakery on site for better solutions in the plant. The businesswoman finds this particularly important. Explaining the situation, the Managing director says: “With these reliable partners, we can also meet our customers’ ever more rapidly changing requirements; for example we can develop and implement new products with good efficient monitoring.” One of the cases shared was, an airline wanted a baked product that did not shed crumbs in the aircraft when eaten. Because the more crumbs a baked item creates, the more likely it is that these crumbs will drop on the passenger clothing, seats on the floor too, thus increasing cleaning costs. The customer also wanted to receive the baked item in a special package. Christine Bee, Sourcing & Development Manager, and Jenny’s daughter, was able to fall back on support from Rademaker when developing a suitable baked product for the customer. Jenny explains: “We also send our team members to the Netherlands for continuous further training. As a company, this helps us to implement customer’s wishes better, and the Rademaker Academy offers us a large amount of inspiration and know-how.”
Production
Employees enter the production area through various hygiene airlocks, and must also pass through a disinfection bath. There are still plans for outdoor silos for dough production – only wheat flour is processed – but automation of the flour transport system is already planned and the concrete foundation is already in position. However, as Christine Bee points out, storing flour is another challenge due to the high outdoor temperatures in Malaysia. The subsoil in the area of the new building is also a challenge, and has its pitfalls. Managing Director Jenny explains, the ground subsides at a few points because the subsoil is rather swampy.
So at present, flour is still transported manually. Flour is cooled in the air-conditioned room and with the flaked ice the final mixed dough temperature can be obtained.
The VMI spiral mixing system uses bowls which are transported by the employee manually to the VMI bowl tipper, which transfers the dough to the new Rademaker full automatic Laminator. The dough is now rolled out and laminated in several steps. According to Sourcing & Development Manager Christine Bee: “We laminate using special pastry margarine or butter as required by the customer, and are flexible in this aspect.” A special feature of the line is its integrated cooling section, where the dough can rest, relax and develop. As Jenny explains: “We were convinced by the high quality and efficient performance of Rademaker lines, which is why we decided to choose a full line machine from Europe.”
After the dough has been rolled out to the necessary height and width, the dough sheet is cut, folded and filled according to the product. Removal is done by auto retractor which direct deposit the dough pieces onto trays. The trays with the dough pieces are transferred to a rack, and then further transported into the freezer or fermentation room, depending on the product.
VMI spiral mixer (Type SPI AV) at Sydney Cake House. The system uses bowls which are transported by the employee manually to the bowl tipper. The mixing system is designed for production 24/7. VMI offers a wide range of spiral mixer for 80 kg to 300 kg of dough. Their range of tools is suited for all types of dough whether moderately or highly hydrated.
At Sydney Cake House
The first lamination of the dough sheet takes place
After lamination, the dough rests in an integrated cooling cabinet
A robot carries rack trolleys within the production area
Two folding stations give the plant its U-shape
After sheeting, the dough is cut, filled and folded, depending on the product
Sydney Cake House offers different type of products range from frozen, preproof, fully baked frozen and fully baked products. The products weight range from 20 to 100 g
Christine Bee, Sourcing & Development Manager, Sydney Cake House, Jenny Chuang, Managing Director of Sydney Cake House, and David Chong, Firmtec Engineering’s General
Manager
Markets and challenges
A short interview with Jenny Chuang, Managing Director of Sydney Cake House.
f2m: Jenny, what is the origin of the bakery’s name?
Jenny: We have no connection with Sydney, but in the nineteen-eighties there was a trend in Malaysia to follow companies international cities names. Because there were already bakeries named after cities like Paris or New York, but so far there was no bakery called Sydney, and I named the company after the city in Australia.
f2m: Why do you buy machines from Europe?
Jenny: Baked products originate from the European region, therefore the lines should also come from Europe. The plants represent quality and reliability.
f2m: Which are your most successful products?
Jenny: We focus on croissants and products made from laminated doughs. Small puff pastry products with various sweet and savoury fillings that are very popular as finger food among the indigenous population and tourists in Malaysia.
f2m: What is your company’s position in Malaysia?
Jenny: We are one of the major player in Malaysia that manufacturers frozen bakery products.
f2m: How many employees do you have and how much flour do you consume?
Jenny: We have about 230 to 250 staffs, depending on demand. We consume up to 150 tons of wheat flour per month.
f2m: Which challenges do you face?
Jenny: Climate change will certainly have an impact on raw materials prices and quality, and will thus affect our business. Rising wages costs in Asia, the shortage of skilled staff and the ageing population also present us with challenges, and will lead to more automation and the use of robots. Added to this, there are changing consumption habits to which we must respond quickly. So, we are always ready to serve customer.
Jenny says “The topic of Industry 4.0 plays a big role in Malaysia, and for us as well. We plan further automation of the production operation.” As wages are also increasing, and therefore the bakery is trialing the use of a transport robot. This robot receives rack trolleys with dough pieces and takes them to further processing. Moreover, empty trolleys from the freezer, can be automatically transported back and to be refilled with dough pieces.
Expansion
At present, employees in the production unit work two shifts on five days a week. As Jenny explains: “The aim is to introduce a third shift, which is easy to implement with Rademaker lines.” Furthermore, the employees currently still make fresh baked goods such as bread and bread rolls by another machine semi-auto machine. This is also to be changed, and the next step in the automation together with a building extension have already been planned. The company has already acquired the corresponding land and the neighboring plot. The building extension is planned for 2021. As Jenny say’s “Automation will be implemented even more systematically in the next building. Our aim is to become the Halāl leader of the bakery sector in Asia.” The company also wants to expand its export business further. In addition to China, Sydney Cake House also currently supplies to customers in Singapore, Japan, Korea and Australia. Another mainstay is its own kiosk chain operation. This is designed to help the Sydney Cake House bakery to be closer to its end customers, to observe the market accurately, and thus to meet customers’ wishes faster as well.
Malaysia
Malaysia and its capital Kuala Lumpur are considered to be one of South-East Asia’s most stable countries, both politically and economically. With its population of around 32 million, the nation lives out its convergence of traditional and modern, Islam and capitalism. Since the nineteen-nineties, the country has become very open to foreign investors, and is seen as a capital-intensive industrial location with great development potential. However, the economy continues to be state-controlled, in spite of a few liberalization measures. The Khazanah Nasional sovereign wealth fund is regarded as the government’s strategic arm, and invests in numerous sectors of industry.
The state religion is Islam, professed by 60% of the population. Therefore it is especially important to food industry companies that they produce according to Halāl requirements, and are certified accordingly. Halāl means “allowed” and “permitted”. It guarantees that foods conform to Islamic dietary rules.
