Other's Bread is too salt: Gardenia vs Massimo( Part 3/3)

Where big business interests are locked in a tussle for market share, truth and justice are often sacrificed. While Gardenia’s competitors have publicly denied any complicity in it, anonymous, suspicious and sneaky supporters of big business interests have been busy exploiting racism and politics in an attempt to shift consumers away from Gardenia, to its competitors. Internet ghosts, and even Facebook campaigners, have been promoting the ‘Boycott Gardenia’ cry with grossly misinformed and misleading claims that for every loaf of Gardenia bread one buys, 16 cents goes to UMNO and Rosmah! Rosmah must now sell ‘roti’ to make a living. The mysterious authors of these vicious and racist email and other hate-attacks against Gardenia seem to be targeting the Chinese in particular, to alter their spending and eating habits in favour of competing brands.

Consumers must know that Gardenia is 70% owned by QAF Ltd. which is a  public listed company on the Singapore Stock Exchange. The remaining 30% shareholding was sold to BERNAS at a premium in 2001, in line with MITI’s conditions for granting Gardenia a manufacturing licence. This was long, long before Syed Mokhtar took control of BERNAS via Tradewinds in 2009 and Rosmah was anywhere within sight of Putrajaya! Understand this: Syed Mokhtar’s ownership of Gardenia was automatic upon his taking over of Bernas.

In view of its 30% shareholdings, Bernas has board of director’s representation in Gardenia. However, it has never interfered in Gardenia’s operations or management, nor ever forced it to buy flour from Syed Mokhtar-controlled companies. In fact, in over 25 years of production, Gardenia has not bought a single gram of flour from any flour mill owned by Bernas, Syed Mokhtar Bukhari or UMNO. Gardenia is still buying flour from Chinese owned millers, especially the Teh family of LUmut.

Gardenia has not bought any flour from Federal Flour Mills (FFM) owned by uncle Bob Kuok’s Group, for over 15 years. That was even before Syed Mokhtar got into the bread business. There was no truth in the vicious campaigns that suggested that UMNO or someone powerful suddenly instructed Gardenia to terminate business with FFM. This was a lie.

 The truth behind buying flour elsewhere is grounded more in terms of trade secrets.    Every bread company has its own secret flour formulations and ingredients for its range of products - white bread, wholemeal, bun, waffle etc. Gardenia decided to part ways with FFM shortly after 1998 when FFM took to also supplying the same formulated flour to Gardenia’s new competitor. FFM was outright unethical in wanting to sell the same formulated flour sold to Gardenia to others.

In response, Gardenia then shifted its orders to other flour millers as they felt there was a conflict of interest issue with FFM which could not be resolved.    Clearly, Gardenia’s move to turn to other local flour millers as far back as 1998 was a commercial and business decision, to protect its trade secrets. The question of race had no bearing whatsoever on its strategic directions then, or even now.

Racism in any form - overt, covert, subtle, must be condemned by right thinking Malaysians. This scurrilous attempt by a group of, obviously Malaysian Chinese to appeal to extreme chauvinism in commercial business matters is racism by any other name. This is most detestable and should be rejected outright!

But that is not all. Our government has been subsidising flour, oil and sugar for the last 50 years, to the tune of billions of ringgit every year. Guess whose businesses have been some of the happy beneficiaries of this taxpayer-funded largesse? Are we ready and willing to concede that the party that enjoys the most in terms of subsidies must therefore be more of a crony to UMNO than the others who do not enjoy the same?

Because FFM enjoys more subsidies that the rest of flour millers including than the Chinese owned miller who supplies to Gardenia, then FFM and Massimo is a better and deeper crony of UMNO. Currently, Gardenia's main formulated flour supplier is controlled by the Teh family from Perak, while it's other major supplier is owned by Indonesian and Australian parties. So, where do stories of Malaysian Chinese business interest being decimated come from? I suspect that race is being exploited to scare the Chinese in the same way that Mahathir, Ibrahim Ali and Perkasa employ it as a tactical weapon to keep the people apart. The Chinese have their own Ibrahim Alis, Zul Nordins and other fascists. 

Next: who gets the most from BN's Flour Subsidy? the Bigger Crony.