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Barkath Group
Barkath Ali, now the group's chairman, told The Edge in 2011 that when duties of more than 30% fell on every import in the late 1960s, the family's trade in imported brands became difficult to carry on, and it asked the brands' owners to let it produce in Penang. Hacks, the sweets it once imported, is now made at the group's own plant on the Penang mainland.
Two European brands, made in Penang
How a Penang importer became the maker of the brands it sold
On Union Street, near Penang’s port, Barkath Stores spent its early decades importing established brands, among them herbal lozenges from an English seaside town. Today the family group it became makes those lozenges in Penang, and a Danish fruit cordial beside them. By the chairman’s account, the change came when the island’s free port closed and the import trade became difficult to carry on.
Two household brands, one Penang family
Hacks, the herbal medicated sweet, and Sunquick, the fruit-cordial concentrate, are both made in Penang by the same family business, Kumpulan Barkath. The group reported turnover of RM200 million for 2010 and more than 700 employees, as reported by The Edge in April 2011. Sunquick held 55% of the Malaysian concentrate-drink category, Barkath Ali said in October 2020.
What makes the group worth a closer look is not its size but its sequence. Barkath Stores held the Hacks agency from the mid-1950s; Sunquick was introduced in 1970, in Barkath Ali’s account. Today the group makes both in Penang, Sunquick through a joint venture with the brand’s Danish owner formed in 1992.
From Union Street to sole agent
Barkath Stores was founded in 1940, according to the company, when Abu Backer Mohd Hussain, a trader from South India, opened a sundry shop on Union Street near Penang’s port. The name means “blessed” in Arabic.
The product that would define the business came from Southport, on England’s north-west coast, where White, Hudson and Co made Hacks, a herbal lozenge. In the mid-1950s the Southport firm appointed Barkath Stores sole agent for Hacks in Malaya and Singapore. Hacks is still sold in Malaysia; a report on the group’s 85th anniversary in December 2025 called it a product synonymous with Malaysians.
The 30% wall
Penang’s free port had made the island a natural base for importers. When the government withdrew that status — in what Barkath Ali Abubacker, the founder’s son and now chairman, described to The Edge as the late 1960s — duties of more than 30% were imposed on all imported items. For a business that imported finished goods under established foreign brands, the import trade became difficult to carry on.
Barkath Ali told the paper in 2011 that the family, which had been importing established brands, Sunquick from Denmark and Hacks from Britain, approached those principals to ask to produce the products in Penang.
The company’s own records show the move had already begun. Its website dates talks with Denmark over a licence to produce locally to 1965, and the first local Hacks production, at Mak Mandin on the Penang mainland, to the mid-1960s, a few years before the duty change the chairman describes. Hacks Malaysia Sdn Bhd was incorporated on 13 May 1969 to make the sweets. In Barkath Ali’s account, the group introduced Sunquick to Malaysia in 1970, at first as a drink for Ramadan, and Barkath Foods Sdn Bhd, incorporated on 3 December 1970, built the first local Sunquick factory at Sungai Lokan in Butterworth.
In 1972 Waller and Hartley, which had owned White, Hudson and Co since 1969, was acquired by S and K Holdings, and the Southport factory closed in the early 1970s, according to Grace’s Guide.
Hacks is still made in Penang, more than half a century after the Southport factory closed.
A Danish partner and a mainland plant
Sunquick outgrew its first factory. In 1992 the group formed Barkath Co-Ro Manufacturing with CO-RO, the Danish owner of the Sunquick brand; ScandAsia describes the venture as an equal shareholding, with Barkath holding 50%. The new plant at Sungai Lokan was opened in 1993 by the prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, and had 12 production lines by the account of Barkath Ali’s 2016 speech.
The awards named in Barkath Ali’s 2016 speech and by ScandAsia are credited to this plant. The speech lists a National Productivity Award in 1993, a Europe Trade Award in 2007 and an FMM Excellence Award in 2013. ScandAsia reported in February 2011 a National Productivity Award in 2003, and placed the plant 27th in the Enterprise 50 ranking of 2006. ScandAsia and the group’s speech name six markets that receive Sunquick made in Butterworth: Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
The group makes Hacks in Penang, and in May 2015 The Star reported that it had announced an investment of about RM60 million in a Hacks plant. The Edge reported in April 2011 that the group distributed through its own depots in Butterworth, the Klang Valley, Ipoh, Johor Bahru and Singapore. The group also ended a 30-year seafood-processing export business, about five years before its 2011 interview with The Edge, after problems exporting to the European Union.
A second test
Looking back in May 2025, Barkath Ali told Utusan Malaysia that Covid-19 had been the group’s biggest test so far. Hacks sales in large supermarkets fell sharply as shoppers put daily needs first; the company turned to smaller outlets, mini-markets and sundry shops, and sales returned to normal once the pandemic ended.
Eighty-five years on
The Utusan feature marked 75 years of Hacks, and Barkath Ali told the paper that the company markets five flavours: original, honey and lemon, clove and apple, mandarin and ginger, and blackcurrant.
In 2011 Barkath Ali told The Edge that the group did not wish to change how it operated and wanted to remain a family business; the chairman’s brother, Anwar Kabir, is named chief executive on the group’s website. In December 2025 the group held its 85th anniversary at its Hacks plant in Penang, with the Raja Muda of Perlis officiating, and the company’s calendar now points to a centenary in 2040.
Researched 41 sources in English, Malay, Chinese.