More than a year since A&W
Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. was acquired by Inter Mark Resources Sdn. Bhd. (IMRSB), the 56-year-old
Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) chain brand is well on track to bring
awesome-ness back to its outlets. George Ang, Chief Executive Officer of both A&W
Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. and IMRSB said this at the kick-off of A&Wesome Festival, which took place at A&W’s first
drive-in outlet in Petaling Jaya to thank loyal fans for their continuous
support over the years.

According to Ang, the
festival which features fun activities for both families and young adults, aims
to bring back fond memories for customers who have enjoyed dining at A&W, and
to appeal to the new generation of customers with their current quality and
tasty menu offerings.
“The advantage we have is
a brand that has strong affinity among Malaysians who grew up in the 70’s and
80’s. They celebrated their birthdays at our outlets with Rooty® The Great Root
Bear and have at least one item on our menu as their favourites; or they could
have hanged out at A&W after school in the afternoons for our iconic RB
float,” said Ang.
He added that A&W’s social
media outreach has garnered positive sentiments for the QSR chain to be ‘awesome’
again and to continue to serve quality and tasty food that they used to grow up
with. However, Ang believes that the future of the QSR chain business lies in
A&W’s ability to win over a new generation of customers, who are the
millennials.
Earlier this year, a few
new sauces were developed using ingredients well-loved by Malaysians for
A&W’s signature Coney, such as the Buttermilk
Cheese Coney and Sichuan Mala Coney.
Ang said that coupled with advertising and promotion, these new and limited
time offering items attracted a lot of customers and kept them coming back for more.
This is definitely one direction that the company will continue to pursue going
forward.
On the topic of
innovation, Ang added that A&W’s new dessert kiosks will be hitting high
traffic shopping malls soon. “Our kiosks will offer different menu from our outlets
such as Waffle To Go, which is one of our
customers’ favourite dessert of waffles and ice-cream but are now packaged to
be eaten on-the-go with soft serve; and Float on Cone, which is a twist
of RB sorbet with vanilla soft serve,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
Besides rolling out new
items on the menu, Ang said that a lot of effort has gone into training staff
to be more efficient in their service and to ensure the standard of food served
is high. “Since we took over, we have not stopped working on improving the
product quality and services in our outlets. We have established the A&W Academy to train or re-train staff
and run competitions among them to motivate good servicing,” explained Ang.
To make A&W
more accessible to Malaysians, A&W Malaysia plans to Increase the number of
outlets, drive-in and kiosks. “In early 2020, we will be opening a very unique
A&W outlet at Seventeen Mall in PJ that is hip and trendy, reliving A&W
retro concept interior design. This outlet will be serving breakfast and other
meals throughout the day while you enjoy music from the 70s and 80s. The aim is
to increase our current number of 48 outlets to 100 outlets, some of which are
drive-ins and kiosks by 2021,” said Ang.
About
A&W Malaysia
A&W is named after
its founder, Allen and Wright. It started as a root beer business which began
in June 1919 and has been serving up root beer and burgers for nearly 100
years.
The A&W franchise
was brought into Malaysia in 1963 by Mr and Mrs Lie Boff from USA. The Lie Boff
family opened their first outlet in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman making it the
first fast food outlet in Malaysia. This was followed in 1965 with the first
Drive-in outlet in Petaling Jaya.
Inter Mark Resources
Sdn Bhd acquired QSR chain A&W Malaysia Sdn Bhd in September 2018. Today,
A&W Malaysia has 48 outlets throughout Malaysia and planning to increase
its number.
With the certified Halal status for all A&W Malaysia products by the
Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM), A&W Malaysia is
committed to providing customers with the finest quality of food, a
satisfactory service, a warm and welcoming environment which all products are
produced under the strictest hygienic and sanitary condition.
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