Giffy & Co

Amidst the MCO, Malaysians, expats and tourists from all walks of life were caught by a pleasant surprise as they were given a Rose or a Gerbera, by a group of young Malaysians in pink “Giffy” Shirts, holding huge white balloons and pushing a pink trolley full of flowers along the streets of Bukit Bintang. 

As part of “Spread The Love” campaign, 800 stalks of fresh flowers were given away for free by Giffy & Co to the public within 1.5 hours on a Saturday late afternoon, with the objective of cheering the public despite the negative impact of MCO.

Esda Meow, Founder of Giffy & Co, shares “Staying true to our mission of delivering happiness and also my personal belief of doing good deeds where possible, this activity brought our vision to life.  It is a touching moment to be able bring a smile to Malaysians in general, the tourists, mask-seller, buskers, the Middle Eastern chef and waiters, the little kids and the elderly, the less well to do and even to a guy in a Maserati.  We hope this nice act would bring the best out in everyone and remind them that there is always kindness around no matter how terrible the situation is.”

She added “Truth be told, it is challenging to maintain staffs without income from Events, Exhibition and Mall Décor industry during MCO and it has been a steep learning curve building a new company in a new industry from scratch.  We would like to encourage employers who struggle during MCO to stay brave, persist and pivot where necessary”. 

All APOM readers can enjoy 10% off flower or gift purchases by quoting “GiffyApom”. 

#kitajagakita #spreadthelove #giffyandco

Giffy & Co – Gifts, Events, Flowers – We deliver love & surprise to your doorstep! Support Giffy & Co here.

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Nitchanan_Art

A local artist with Siamese heritage, is an art lover that dives into making crafts art in her free time. 

Doubling as a well traveled person, she has witnessed how creative handmade jewellery can be a fun, self-sustaining endeavour in various other countries. After some searching, along with trial and error, Nitchanan discovered the independent arts movement here in Malaysia.

With the encouragement of her friends and family, she started innovating simple jewellery until landing on one specific idea : Merging Batik cloth with Origami into earrings. A union of both the traditional Malaysian and Japanese cultures.

Instead of paper alone, Batik cloth is used as reinforcement to safeguard it’s unique shape.

As a result: The Batik Origami earrings were launched to positive feedback.
Because every pair will never be exactly the same due to the handcrafting nature, Nitchanan embellishes each batch with a different twist and constantly attempts to keep the designs interesting.

Support Nitchanan_Art here.

SuperfruitsValley, Chuping, Perlis.

If you can’t tell, we’re a farm that focuses on growing superfruits. But it is much more than just fruits that pack a punch.

These fruits have earned their title as superfruits because they are packed with antioxidants, fibre, vitamins and minerals that are beneficial for health.

Starting off as farmers, we wanted to be able to provide imported fruits for Malaysians so everybody could enjoy them at affordable prices.

I guess it was a little bit like a dream of “now everyone can fly”. Nobody really believed in the dream, however we continued to persevere for 5 years.

With a breakthrough, we are proud to present Superfruits Valley that has a mission of providing 100% locally grown fruits and products. We’ve been able to cultivate figs, lemons, passionfruit, gac fruit, mulberry, cape gooseberry and fingerlimes grown pesticide free and wax free!

We are also able to turn our fresh produce into healthy products using freeze dry technology as the process helps retain up to 97% nutrients of our fruits while prolonging their shelf life. Focusing on creating high quality, sugar free and safe products, we hope to improve the health and the everyday lifestyle of Malaysians.

#FromtheValleytoyourBelly. Support Superfruits Valley here.

B Lokal

Online reviews and blogs have become an important source that allow consumers to search for detailed and reliable information by sharing past experiences. Given such recognition, the idea to start B Lokal was mounted when my business partner, Adam and I were having our afternoon tea on a working Sunday, challenging our minds on what we can do to assist the local travel and tourism industry as well as food entrepreneurs which has been hit the most by the Pandemic.

Adam and I came from the hospitality background in Malaysia for the past 20 years working with various hotels, resorts and F&B outlets promoting, selling and marketing them was all we knew in our whole life. By converting our knowledge, skills and experience into B Lokal is perfect for us due to the background that we were in. That is where the idea of B Lokal came which we have just started 2 months back.

We are a bunch of folks from Malaysia that are always curious and adventurous in discovering Malaysia’s unknown, unbelievable and untouched virgin of travel and food through the assessment of hotels, resorts and homestays as well as taste. We are true believers that; the best way of experiencing travel and food is through the eye of a local.

There are many travel and food review sites but what makes B Lokal unique and different is that we only review travel, places of interest and food in Malaysia. Our idea is to promote, encourage and engage more domestic travelling (especially during this pandemic) and food cravers which at the same time welcoming and introducing our beautiful, rich culture, heritage, food and spices of Malaysia to the world.

One of our main journeys is to rebuild the hospitality, travel, tourism, airline and food business through our reviews, posts and blogs so that travelers, diners, business owners’ as well as employees’ confidence and encouragement are restored to prepare for the great comeback of the entire industry.

We enjoy the concoction of travel and food wherever we are. Be it at work or holiday, business or leisure, travel and food are always in our mind.

Discover Travel & Food the Lokal Way!
Support B Lokal here.

Mamee

For 50 years, Mamee has remained close to the hearts of all Malaysians, with childhood memories spanning across generations anchored on the humble backstory of villagers in rural areas eating noodles straight out of the packet.

It was no instant success nevertheless. Originally named “Lucky” back in 1970, the first product launched in the instant noodle segment merely received a lukewarm response. With business struggling to see any light in sight, a change of fortune was on the horizon during a trip to a rural village where Mamee Monster noodle snack was eventually born and Mamee never looked back ever since. Till today, the iconic large, blue, and furry Monster is well-recognised by people from all walks of life and its image transcends beyond the product itself.

Over the years, more brands, products and characters were developed and launched – notably Mister Potato, Mamee Chef, Double Decker, Corntoz, Nutrigen, Cheers and others which holistically cover the instant noodles, snacks, beverage and biscuit segments. As of today, there are over 100 Mamee products in the market – both local and international – with more exciting, new, avant-garde products in the pipeline affixed on the re-developed, innovation centre in Subang Jaya and the full-fledged manufacturing factory in Malacca headquarters with Monstars – as the Mamee employees are known as – working hand-in-hand with various stakeholders, particularly our consumers.

Global partnerships with Manchester United Football Club, and pioneering a free kidney dialysis centre in Malacca for underprivileged locals are among the major milestones throughout the years. In addition, the opening of Mamee’s flagship store, named Mamee Jonker House, nestled in Jonker Street, Malacca back in 2013 serves as the ideal platform for Mamee enthusiasts to have direct interactions with the brand. Mamee Jonker House features a wide range of customer-centric areas for the benefit of its customers, namely, a souvenir store, a café, a noodle doodle and Mamee Monster workshops.

A World of Good Taste.
Support Mamee here.

Quan Dog Treats

Quăn Dog Treats was started out of passion and love for our dogs and what goes into their mouth and bellies. When shopping for dog treats, we found that the market was traditionally focused on heavily processed and artificially flavored treats to ensure a long use-by date. We didn’t want that for our pets.

While in recent times, there has been a shift towards homemade dog treats, an increasing trend is to blend various ingredients before reshaping and processing, so the treats look pretty, and like human food e.g. pizzas, cupcakes, etc. Cute, but gimmicky.

At Quăn Dog Treats, our aim is to bring a simple, honest, no-gimmick approach to dog treats in Malaysia. What humans enjoy visually doesn’t matter as much to a dog. All they want and need are delicious, natural, species-specific treats to snack on, or as a training reward.

We wanted our dogs, and all dogs, to enjoy treats that are recognizable and contain simple ingredients, that dogs are born to enjoy. If it smells and looks good to humans, it’s a bonus! All our products are proudly handmade in Malaysia in small batches to ensure that each pack of treats is of the freshest quality. All Quăn treats are made from whole foods and human grade ingredients, and are easy to understand. We source our meats and ingredients from local suppliers and markets for freshest quality and to also benefit fellow Malaysian small business and vendors. Our treats are 100% natural and free from additives, preservatives, fillers and colouring. If we don’t put it on the ingredient list, it’s not in the treat.

Ultimately, we want only the best for our pets, and by extension, for everyone’s pets.

The QDT promise to our customers is this: “We will never feed your dog what we don’t already feed our own.”

We hope to educate pet owners, and dog owners in particular, that the best thing you can do for your dog is to let them be one. Quăn Dog Treats is handmade right here in Malaysia and is proud to be a piece of Malaysia.

Quan Dog Treats – Your dog deserves the best treats.
Support Quan Dog Treats here.

Vechnology

Vechnology comes from the name of “Vending Technology” and it reflects our ability as a first mover of home-grown OEM vending machine assembler in Southeast Asia who focuses on providing IoT, SaaS solutions and mechanical design for handling consumer-packaged goods and industrial tools, with a goal to innovate the conventional vending machines in Malaysia.

It all started by the two founders who supply snacks vending machines in local universities to solve the hunger’s demand during their time in the university. Back to 2015, Vechnology was selling a series of imported vending machines. However, problems occur such as mechanical imperfection, system error and jammed cash & coins in the payment system appear frequently. This is where both founders took a step forward to transform the embedded vending machine into a smarter one.

Today, we are the first unified QR code, E-wallet vending machine producer in Malaysia, partnering with iPay88, the leading payment gateway which is equipped with upgradable architecture technology which enables integration with e-wallet, RFID and soon facial recognition. 

We promise to offer the superior quality of vending machines at a lower price to cater various expectations from the market continuously at the same time, as we specialise in a fully managed vending services that cover all aspects including equipment R&D, product quality and after-sales support.

Vechnology builds smart vending.
Support Vechnology here.

Keldai

Keldai is known with their parody-ness , combining all of the ideas and fusion references between vintage cartoons and Malaysian pop culture as it is easy to cross with unique international brands and icons.

Let me introduce myself. Im Shawnalyzer, personally im a digital artist/collector. I started this brand with selling vintage toys back in 2017 I get to know more collector and learn why toys are really mean to them. 

Everyone had their own childhood moments that can’t be forgotten.Cause that was the only phase that we only crave for unstoppable fun and happiness before we get into commitment.

Reminiscing the good old memories sometime can motivate us to be who we really are. 

So i decided to bring this message and turn them into movable message that can blend with Malaysian culture  .

KELDAI Its a combination between donkey(keldai) and BANDAI. Back in the days, Donkey was used to carry around goods or been taken as a transportation.

Align with our vision to carry the childhood memories to live by visualising it through our design. While BANDAI was famous with Animes, toys and Figura which you can see in our collections.. This is how the ideas of our brand was created.  

We Craft Your Childhood Memories.
Support Keldai here.

BentukBentuk

BentukBentuk® was founded in April 2016 as a result from our love and interest of making things from scratch. It was pivoted from being a desire to own a concrete planter, making the pieces ourselves then turned it into a business that is so dear and close to our heart after countless and months of experiments and hard work. As a husband and wife team, we enjoyed working together and spending time with each other. We love having this common interest, working and growing together towards the same goal. It is obvious, we love concrete and we love things that are handmade. We will choose something crooked that is handmade over a perfectly finished item made in factory. The common question that we get is “why concrete as our main material?”. The answer simply lies in the characteristic of concrete itself; it is being perceived and misjudged by many as a hard and cold materials used only in big construction without any beauty to be part of any home décor. We’d like to change that, we’d like people to really see the beauty beyond this perception, how fluid and flexible concrete can be when it comes to shape it based on the design, how can it bring so much warmth to the home décor when incorporated and how cool it can make your space looks!We love working with concrete as it does not require any power tools nor any complicated machine to begin with. All you need is cement, any aggregate of your choice, the right amount of water, your determination and basically you are done. As the world is moving into a faster pace by day, it is so liberating to be able to handmade our concrete pieces. It feels like we have the freedom to make anything that we have in mind and we do appreciate each step it takes before it is completed, almost asif watching a plant grow from seed to a tree despite the long hours it takes before it’s completed. All the sweat, tears, time, and love poured into the making process translated into this one piece of hand made concrete item that is uniquely made.Another question that were frequently asked is “Do you make it yourselves? How do you make it?” and we love seeing the awe and excitement when they learnt that it is 100% made by us, Malaysian. In Malaysia, handmade items are becoming rare as people are chasing for the perfection and they forgot that true beauty lies within each step of the process during making, not just the end product. It is the art of making via a slow process that captivates the experience. It is important to showcase to the world,what we as Malaysian can achieve, what we can produce ourselves and what we can feel proud of – not just some mass imported items made overseas and labelled as “Malaysian brand”. What we have is instrumental to Malaysia, it is a product made in Malaysia, using raw materials sourced in Malaysia, handmade and design with love by your fellow Malaysian. When people are looking for a brand or product that is truly Malaysia to showcase it internationally, we can proudly raise our hand and represent Malaysia in such way to show that Malaysia have local talents, ability and uniqueness of their own. This what drives us every single day and this fueled our thirst to embark this continuous journey to create a more unique design and hope it can speak more about our country and culture, that better represent the brand and our creativity. We are proud being Malaysian and we wanted that to show in our brand.

Handmade Concrete Decor.
Support BentukBentuk here.

Solewell

It was raining softly at Bukit Larut Taiping one late afternoon in 2012. I quickly called out to my children to walk quickly before it started to pour. Feeling panicky, my son pulled my shirt and I fell forward. Cracked I heard glasses cracked. I just realised when I fell, my SLR camera lens broken into pieces. Luckily I was not hurt, only some minor cuts on both my knees. We continued walking to a nearby shed while waiting for the rain to stop.
While at the shed, I said to myself, wouldn’t it be good if I’m wearing a pair of antislip sandals. That way I won’t fall and injured myself.
Back home, I decided to make antislip sandals. Using my knowledge in rubber, I tried and tried many times before I got it right. Combined with my passion for green products, finally Solewell Anti Slip Eco Sandals was created. Made in Malaysia for fellow Malaysians who want to have antislip sandals and support green products.

Steven Ng
Founder

Stepping Forward To Better Environment. Support Solewell here.