Thursday, May 24, 2012

A Date with Julie's Blogging Contest

As told in my previous post-- A Date with Bloggers 2012, I am participating in one of the contests offered by Julie's and we are required to write a blog post about our experience during our visit to one of their main factories which situated in Alor Gajah, Melaka. Julie's is a well-known brand which sells/manufactures biscuits, Malaysians should be familiar with this brand as its products can be seen all over the supermarkets/mini markets or even markets in all over Malaysia. 



We were chauffeured to Julie's factory right after we reached Malacca state and we were brought to their meeting room immediately after our arrival. Photos showing the main entrance of Julie's. 


We were greeted by the staff and seated around the conference table, there were some samples and mineral water given to us too. On the right side of the conference room, there were three tables displaying their products, including their newly launched product-- Le-Mond biscuits. 

Wish to know more about Perfect Food (the manufacturer of Julie's biscuits) ?

Perfect Food is committed to bake the best biscuits and they are very strict on their production factory's cleanliness. They did share their company's slogan with us too, which is "To bake biscuits with Love". All of their products are in compliance with international standards (ISO) and no preservatives added on their products. They do use natural coloring (which said to be 20 times more expensive compared to artificial's). Moreover, their water which will be used in production will be filtered as well. Products produced that are not up to the standard will be rejected and the rejected products will not be recycled. We were told that some factories or companies do recycle their rejected products. Rejected products will be thrown away and any products displayed on the shelf for more than 9 months will be taken back, by doing so, Perfect Food will be facing a loss of Rm 1 million per year from implementing this policy but this must be done to ensure that their products are in compliance with the international standards, said the General Manager.


They are very particular on their safety regulations as well. Employees, workers and visitors (including us) will be required to put on protective wear before entering the production room. Guests will be asked to register themselves at the guard house first and an identification tag will need to be present. An emergency exit plan/route was presented to us during the slide presentation as well.

Julie's biscuits production process ?

It starts with weighing the raw materials and mixing them (the flour) together, the flour will be sent to fermentation later on. Baking comes after forming and the baked biscuits will be left for cooling. Hygienic is one of the main criteria to look into in every single procedure. As for the packing process, the biscuits will have to undergo a metal-detection checking procedure to ensure there will be no metal substances left out in the biscuits or has mistakenly inserted. Sandwiching comes next, which the flavored cream will be sandwiched in between the biscuits and sent for wrapping. Weight checking of the product comes next, followed by storage. Quality Assurance and inspection will be done on their raw material store, packaging material store, flour tanker and magnetic separator. In case you are wondering, the magnetic separator will be used to remove metal from the flour. As for their raw material store, first in first out inventory method will be used to ensure freshness of the raw materials.


Reviews of their products were included in the slide presentation. We were introduced to their "Aloha Culture" too, where they emphasize on creating friendly and harmonious working environment for their employees. They have a list of do's to promote this policy to ensure comfortableness of the working environment in Perfect Food. 

Share The Love ?

You might wonder, do big companies like Julie's/Perfect Food conduct CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) ? To your question, YES, they do. They actually named it Share The Love, which aims to encourage society to express love. They have published a music album named Share The Love Album which consists of 5 wonderful songs. The CD album was distributed to some of their employees to raise the morale and to some of the public, just to promote their Share The Love campaign. Other than that, they do care about Unsung Workers as well, unsung workers are defined as those people who will be working when normal people like you and me are sleeping, regardless public holiday or hot/cold weather, sunny/rainy days. Some examples of unsung workers are nurses, garbage collectors, newspaper vendors, bus drivers and even police. They will be staying alert and on-call for 24hours a day. To recognize their effort in making a better living for humans, Julie's has actually given some of their products to them, which hopes to motivate them and acknowledge their effort. They are currently doing this on 3 places only, namely Malacca, Kuala Lumpur and Selangar. Julie's is hoping to extend this meaningful activity to East Malaysia soon and Share The Love to the people in East Malaysia.


After the slide presentation, we were asked to dress in their protective attire, just like surgeons. We were required to wash our hands before entering the production room either. Spraying of anti-septic liquids on our hands was forcefully conducted too. After the tour and obtained a better understanding of their production, we were invited to their cafeteria for a buffet lunch. This scrumptious meal consisted of Curry Chicken, Roasted Duck, Stir Fried Vegetables and some Curry Fish. As for desserts, there were some Portuguese Egg Tarts and fresh cut fruits provided. Cold cordial drinks were served as well.


Question and Answer session comes right after the buffet lunch. The Research and Development staff was asked to introduce on their upcoming products to us. Its interesting to know that they are actually coming up with products using Sultana Raisins as one of their main ingredients. We were asked to sample some of the displayed products before leaving too.


**Photo courtesy of Criz from Crizfood.com **

Last but not least, we took the opportunity to take a group photo at the entrance of Julie's factory. The overall experience was very informative and interesting, I have never visited to a factory nor a production room before, its interesting to see how they ensure absolute cleanliness and its very amusing to look at the production belt, from raw materials to work-in-progress products and the final products. I would also love to take this opportunity to thank Julie's for sponsoring the event and making this trip/event possible.

14 comments:

  1. haha I use to eat those.

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    1. me too :P, used to eat a lot of these when i was a kid

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  2. All the big companies have to have CSR... in fact, this is part of the company's corporate requirement if not mistaken.

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    1. i see,what i know big companies mostly do CSR but i don't really know that its compulsory

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  3. Ya...I use Julie's cheese crackers and crush them for bread crumbs. Very nice.

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    1. bread crumbs ? sounds really creative lol

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  4. Wahhh ..... have to write so much ah!? I will be half-dead. haha....

    Oh, now I know why there was so little food left for me when I finally went to the buffet line. I see so much food on your plate. Evidence!

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    1. hahahahaha, paiseh la, hungry mah, who knows why they never refill >_<. Was trying to throw everything in haha

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  5. awesomeness, pity i could not make it that day ><.. sounds like loads of fun!

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    1. yea, haha, hope to meet you guys (KL-based bloggers) soon =)

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  6. Julie's! My feveret biscuit.. :)

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    1. Hi, amir, glad to hear that, i just fall in love with their Oat 25 :)

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