New franchise from Borneo Oil
Borneo Asian Food features Sarawak and Sabah delicacies
KUCHING: Borneo Oil Bhd, which operates the homegrown SugarBun fast food restaurant chain, has launched another food franchise to bring together some of the most popular dishes in Sarawak and Sabah for the Peninsular Malaysia market.
Borneo Asian Food (BAF) is the new brand, which features the much sought-after Sarawak laksa and garoupa fish noodles from Sabah and other favourite food from the two states.
The first franchised BAF outlet opened with brisk business at Pacific Place, Ara Damansara, Petaling Jaya about two weeks ago, according to Borneo Oil executive director Raymond Teo Kiew Leong.
He said BAF had attracted the interest of investors as Borneo Oil-owned BAF outlet at Menara Hap Seng, Kuala Lumpur had been doing very well since it opened for business about six months ago.
“BAF operates on a different concept, like multi-stalls in a food court style. The outlets offer popular Borneo dishes, and our main focus is for Peninsular Malaysia expansion,” he told StarBiz.
Also on the BAF menu are giant garoupa fish and Sabah’s seaweed. Other diners’ delights are the popular SugarBun broasted chicken and fish burger.
Teo said the company was taking a different strategy to re-enter the peninsula food market where SugarBun restaurants had a glory past. However, these restaurants, which were then owned by Sugar Bun Services Corp Bhd, were closed down under a major company restructuring which saw Borneo Oil taking over its listed status on Bursa Malaysia.
He said the plan was to set up another three franchise BAF outlets by the end of the year.
On SugarBun’s expansion, Teo said three new restaurants were opened for business in the quarter ended July 31, 2016, bringing the total number of franchised outlets in Malaysia and overseas to 86. So far this year, 16 new outlets have been set up.
The bulk of the SugarBun restaurants are in Sarawak’s major and secondary towns while the overseas restaurants are in Brunei, China, Australia and Bangladesh.
During the quarter under review, Borneo Oil fast food and franchise division increased its pizza Pezzo outlets by four to 44.
Borneo Oil’s wholly-owned subisidiay SB Supply & Logistics Sdn Bhd secured the master licensee for the Singapore-based Pezzo chain in November-2014, and the business has since seen exponential growth, especially in Sarawak.
According to Teo, Pezzo’s uniqueness and customer-friendly concept had set it apart from other pizza brands as Pezzo is available in slices or by the largest-size of 14-inch pan on the takeaway concept. There are up to 14 varieties of Pezzo for customers to pick from and they can choose to have just one slice or a combination of slices of different varieties or a whole pizza.
During the May-July 2016 quarter, Borneo Oil fast food and franchise division recorded higher revenue of about RM13.7mil, up from RM11.4mil in period.
From its core food business, Borneo Oil group diversified into gold exploration and mining activities in Pahang two years ago as the sub-contractor in prospecting, exploration and mining of alluvial and lode gold in Bukit Ibam, Mukim Batu Yon and Hutan Simpan Hulu Jelai,
In the second quarter to July 31, Borneo Oil processed 138,751 tonnes of ores and produced 10.68 kg of gold ore. the preceding corresponding