03.10.2019 (New Straits Times Online) - BALAKONG, Selangor: Yu-Ai Food Industries Sdn Bhd, a supporter of the government's “Love My Palm Oil” campaign, hopes companies which innovate and market confectionery baked with red palm oil will be offered tax incentives.

For a start, Yu-Ai has sold 50,000 mooncakes baked with red palm oil.

In an interview with the New Straits Times here recently, Yu-Ai Food managing director Leong Kam Onn said his team had taken up the challenge to cook the lotus seed paste with red palm oil instead of ordinary palm cooking oil in a bid to produce a more nutritious variant.

"It was in June when we heard that Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok had wanted to encourage more restaurateurs and bakeries to try out the premiumly priced red palm oil," he recalled.

"We're seeing the trend of consumers being more health conscious. So, in recent years, we've been making low sugar mooncakes. Our halal mooncakes are well-received by five-star hotels, supermarkets and fine dining outlets," he said.

"We've always used palm oil because it has high smoke point. Bakery fats and oils with a higher smoke point can endure higher heat during the cooking process," he added.

This year, he said, his team had decided to step up and take on the challenge posed by the government's “Love My Palm Oil” campaign by using red palm oil that is packed with beta-carotene and Vitamin E tocotrienols, in its mooncakes.

"Red palm oil is three times more expensive than the ordinary palm cooking oil and it's best cooked and baked in low heat," he said.

So, in preparing the lotus seed paste for the mooncakes, he said the red palm oil had to be carefully blended into the paste in relatively low heat.

Finally after a week, his team found the optimum temperature and timing in blending the red palm oil into the paste so that it is evenly cooked and has the ideal melt-in-your-mouth texture.

"The end results of using red palm oil is to bring out the natural lotus seed flavour of the mooncake while retaining rich nutrients such as the beta-carotenes and Vitamin E tocotrienols," he said.

"In July, our red palm oil mooncakes made their debut at the Parliament. My brother, Chong Onn, was at hand to explain the benefits of this healthier mooncake variant to the Minister Teresa Kok, other lawmakers and media practitioners there," he added.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng is scheduled to table the 2020 Budget in Parliament next Friday afternoon.

When asked what Yu-Ai wished for, Kam Onn said: "We hope the government, in driving the “Love My Palm Oil” campaign, would accord tax incentives to small companies, like us, in innovating and marketing confectionery baked with red palm oil."

Established in 1989, Kam Onn said he and his three brothers pooled their own savings to take over Yu-Ai Trading to produce kaya paste for sale to bakeries, restaurants and neighbouring hotels as fillings for their cakes, steam buns and pastries.

They had Yu-Ai's manufacturing facility halal-certified by the authorities and expanded their kitchen staff to produce more fillings such as red bean, chocolate, mung bean and yam.

Over the years, Yu-Ai's halal confectionery become increasingly popular on e-commerce platforms such as Lazada. Their mooncakes, targeted at health-conscious consumers, are also exported in bulk to Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Myanmar and Brunei.

Now that the Mid-Autumn Festival has come to an end, Kam Onn and his team are preparing biscuits for Christmas and Chinese New Year.