These S'wakians started a home-based cookie biz 7 yrs ago, now plan to expand into a factory

When Ke Sing first started her home-based cookies brand, she had no idea that it’d grow into something quite as big as Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts seven years later.

In a conversation with Vulcan Post, Marco, her husband, shared that Ke Sing has a background in graphic design but wanted to venture into entrepreneurship. At the same time, she loved eating cookies. So, why not merge her two interests together?

“Growing up, she always loved to eat Famous Amos cookies,” Marco noted. “But she noticed that in Malaysia, there wasn’t really a homegrown cookie brand that stood out.”

She started baking and selling one jar, then 10, and then slowly and surely, it became a full-fledged business, famed for its cookies and cakes.

Achieving unexpected virality

At this point, you might be wondering who Jerald is.

Jerald is actually Ke Sing’s brother, and beyond being the namesake of the brand, he also plays a huge role as the person who introduced the “desserts” part of Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts.

It turns out that Jerald is quite skilled at creating desserts such as cakes. He’s now in charge of creating the majority of the desserts sold by the business.

Jerald had joined the company quite early on, but Marco only joined his wife and brother-in-law after the MCOs.

“I saw the potential in the business,” he explained. “I myself have a background in sales and have expertise in advertising and marketing. So, I suggested, why don’t the three of us actually work together?”

But the breakthrough moment for the company came during the Kuching Festival Food Fair.

Marco shared that this annual event, which happens around July and August, draws in quite a large crowd from Peninsular Malaysia and other countries. Nowadays, it’s so competitive that vendors have to join a waiting list to vie for a spot.

In 2022, they decided to sell their classic tiramisu there, which ended up going viral. This really helped put them on the map and even landed them the Best Bake award at the festival.

But what’s so unique about their tiramisu? Home bakeries in Kuching are aplenty, Marco pointed out, and many of these brands would actually take up stalls at festivals, too.  

“Maybe because the flavour profile was refined to fit locals’ palates,” Marco mused.

While the market is saturated with smaller players, there aren’t actually many standout competitors when it comes to large-scale productions—especially with cookies.

“People may think that we’re just a desserts brand with our ice cream and cakes, but actually, we’re more of a manufacturing business. Our biggest focus is still on our cookies. We just didn’t know that we’d get famous for our tiramisu,” he said.

Aside from delivering good bakes, Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts is also known for its beautiful packaging, designed by Ke Sing herself.

She also designs the beautiful, award-winning booths that Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts is stationed within during the Kuching Festival Food Fair.

Scaling through bottlenecks

With the rising popularity caused by the 2022 Kuching Festival Food Fair, the home bakery could no longer suffice.

“If we didn’t change our location, our capacity would be stuck there,” Marco said. “At that point, our production was in the 10,000 range for just the festival period, but we would get bottlenecked there due to space constraints.”

Thus, they decided to open up their first physical shop during the end of 2022, after their first year of virality at the Kuching Festival.

Currently, there’s only one physical outlet, but the team has acquired the lot next door to help with production.

As much as Kuching Festival helped the business boom, the more pressing matter for the team is festive seasons. Demand soars during periods like Christmas, Chinese New Year, and Gawai. Marco told Vulcan Post that they see 10,000 to 20,000 transactions during these seasons.

Marco added, “This year, I think our production may double again, so we will need to find a third space. But it might make more sense to actually look into a large-scale factory.”

Another bottleneck, though, is caused by the supply of ingredients—or lack thereof.

Kuching is a smaller market; thus, there is less stock being imported by suppliers. This is especially true with the high-quality ingredients that Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts seek. Their butter, for one, comes all the way from France.

Given this obstacle, the team has learnt to order their ingredients very early on in advance, so customers can enjoy their festive bakes without worries.

Slowly and steadily

Initially, the trio behind the business had zero experience with business. But step by step, as a response to the increasing attention demand, they’ve picked up the necessary know-how.  

There’s still much to learn, of course, but one thing that motivates the management team is their staff.

“They’ve helped us a lot. The three of us aren’t able to achieve much. So, we’re really happy that we can find precious team members that have our best interest in mind,” Marco said. “Sometimes, we can get quite worried about things, but they end up being more worried than us and will help us solve issues together.”  

The co-founder shared that the team does get properly rewarded with benefits and bonuses whenever the business achieves awards and accolades.

Thanks to this reliable team, the three co-founders can focus on growing the business. The secret ingredient to their growth, Marco believes, is simply listening to feedback.

This advice might seem overrated, but perhaps it’s overrated for a good reason. There can’t be a successful business without customers, after all.

As an example, the bakery aims to obtain a halal certification next year to better serve Muslim customers.

Another key component is their intensive research and development.

“We won’t spread ourselves too thin and release a huge variety of flavours. We typically focus on a few,” Marco said. “Our cookies have four flavours, our cakes have four flavours, and our ice cream has two flavours. Because we’re not seeking quantity, but quality.”

But that doesn’t mean that they don’t keep up with trends. In fact, Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts will release trendy flavours for a limited time. For one, they managed to tap into the recent craze with Dubai chocolate.

For those interested in checking out Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts at the next Kuching Festival Food Fair, you’d be happy to know that as an awardee, Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts already has a guaranteed spot at the festival in 2025.

For folks like us over in the Klang Valley, you might be hoping that they’ll expand here soon.

While they definitely have ambitions to open a shop in KL, the business is focusing on areas like Miri and Sabah first.

“And actually, my wife’s ambitions are even bigger than mine,” Marco shared. “She has hopes to bring Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts abroad.”

Given the trajectory of their growth thus far, I’d say that the sky is the limit for this Kuching desserts brand.

Featured Image Credit: Jerald’s Cookies & Desserts

...