JOHOR BARU: Kerry Ingredients (M) Sdn Bhd, a unit of Ireland's Kerry Group, plans to introduce new products to meet the demands for new flavours from consumers who are exposed to more new and exotic tastes.
Peter Dillane, vice president and general manager of food service, Kerry Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA), said consumers nowadays are more aware of more tastes and flavours from other countries because of the Internet and social media.
"These consumers are constantly looking for new products to satisfy their needs for these new tastes. The challenge for us is to come up with new products to meet these demands," said Dillane.
He said the company will also work with its major clients, like McDonald's Malaysia, to come up new sauces whenever the restaurant introduces new limited time offer (LTO) items.
"This year, for example, we came up with the Korean Sauce for McDonald's Korean Burger.Next year, we expected McDonald's to introduce two or three new LTO items," said Dillane.
Kerry is the exclusive supplier of sauces and syrups for McDonald's in the APMEA region. It supplies about 20 types of products to McDonald's including chili sauce, BBQ sauce, special McChicken sauce and chocolate and strawberry topping for the sundaes.
Dillane was speaking to the media a media tour of Kerry Ingredients' plant in Plentong here which specialises in the manufacturing of a variety of sweet and savoury sauces and syrup.
Also present were Hafizah Ismail, the regulatory manager for halal at the Regulatory Affairs Department and the Plentong senior manufacturing manager Chong Tin Yung.
Besides the Plentong plants, Kerry also operate three other plants in Malaysia, namely in Tampoi, which specialises in manufacturing infant formula, Butterworth (specialises in blending) and Shah Alam (specialises in emulsifiers).
It employs about 1,300 employees locally.
"We manufacture about 800 different products at the Plentong plant, which have a capacity to produce some 100,000 tonnes of sauces and syrups a year," said Dillane.