Hong Kong
CNN Business
—
The founding father of Mamee Monster, the long-lasting Southeast Asian noodle snack emblem, has died, the corporate showed Tuesday.
Mamee-Double Decker Group, a Malaysian meals producer, advised CNN Business that Pang Chin Hin died on Saturday on the age of 92. Local media had given his age as 96, reflecting a conventional Chinese means of calculating age.
“Without [him] many of our childhoods would be very different,” CEO Pierre Pang Hee Ta, Pang’s grandson, advised CNN Business in a observation. “He is truly a legend, we have our utmost respect for him, and we are grateful for what he has done and will now continue his legacy.”
Pang leaves at the back of a cherished emblem that has turn out to be a pantry staple for customers around the area. Mamee is best possible identified for its colourful packets of crunchy, dry fast noodles, that are in most cases offered with savory powdered flavoring. Some have likened the picture of a bushy blue caricature persona on its packaging to Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster.
Pang, a former used automotive broker, based the corporate in 1971, when he and a industry spouse arrange an fast noodle manufacturing facility within the Malaysian coastal state of Malacca.
The corporate began off making conventional fast noodles, with packs of vermicelli offered underneath a emblem referred to as Lucky.
About 3 years later, Pang’s son spotted laborers who labored as rubber tappers “eating uncooked instant noodles straight from the pack,” consistent with an organization biography posted on its web site. The circle of relatives then made up our minds to department out into a brand new class: promoting noodles as dried snacks.
The Mamee line now has quite a lot of powdered flavors, starting from fish fry to rooster to black pepper. The corporate says the title of the snacks, that are well-liked by kids, is a play at the phrase “Mummy.” It sells in 86 international locations.
Today, the corporate’s product vary has expanded to incorporate plenty of snacks and drinks, together with Double Decker crackers, Mister Potato chips and Nutrigen yogurt beverages.
In an interview this yr, Pang’s grandson mentioned that whilst Mamee was once its maximum recognizable emblem, Mister Potato crisps had been its greatest moneymaker.
Pierre Pang advised Malaysian e-newsletter The Edge in March that the release of the ones potato chips was once “the single most important decision in our history, as the brand contributes more than 70% of our revenue and is exported to 18 markets.”
He added that his father and grandfather, the now overdue Pang, had been receptive to new concepts and supportive of his imaginative and prescient to develop the corporate in new instructions.
“I’m so fortunate that they are so open,” he mentioned. “We are the product of two great, forward-thinking generations.”
