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Barkath Ali Abubacker
Chairman 2nd GEN
Launching a new Sunquick range in Penang in 2016, Barkath Ali Abubacker gave his speech to two men who were not in the room: his late father, who built the business on imported brands, and Jep Petersen, founder of Sunquick's Danish owner. Of the plant they had envisioned, he said that "we did not let them down".
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An heir who changed the trade and said the firm would stay family
Barkath Ali Abubacker took over his family’s Penang business after his father’s death. His father had built it on importing established brands. As chairman he defends something else: a family manufacturer that makes those brands at home.
We do not wish to change our modus operandi and we want to stay in this business as a family.
Formally he is Dato’ Seri Haji Barkath, the style he uses himself. Brandmine’s profiles name people without titles, so this page says Barkath Ali throughout; the omission is house style, not a sign of disrespect. The Formal Address note explains the titles.
The eldest son of Union Street #
His father, Abu Backer Mohd Hussain, who founded Barkath Stores, came to Penang from South India. The shop he opened on Union Street, near the port, was founded in 1940, according to the company, and its name means “blessed” in Arabic. For its first decades it was an importer and agent: in the mid-1950s the English maker of Hacks, White, Hudson and Co of Southport, appointed it sole agent for the herbal sweets in Malaya and Singapore.
Barkath Ali was the eldest son. Utusan Malaysia reported in 2025 that he was sent to London for a year to learn the confectionery business. He became the second generation to run the business after his father’s death, while still in his twenties.
A trade made difficult #
The business his father built had been made for a free port. In the late 1960s Penang lost its duty-free status and duties of more than 30% fell on all imported goods, which made the family’s import trade hard to carry on. Barkath Ali later told The Edge how the family moved from importing to making: “We were importing established brands like Sunquick from Denmark and Hacks from the UK and we approached our principals to allow us to produce these products here.”
The family’s companies were rebuilt around manufacturing. In his account, it was his family that brought Sunquick to Malaysia.
Partners, not principals #
The relationship with Sunquick’s Danish owner, CO-RO, became the group’s defining partnership. In 1992 the two formed Barkath Co-Ro Manufacturing, an equal shareholding as ScandAsia describes it, and in 1993 the prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, opened its new plant at Sungai Lokan.
When Barkath Ali launched a ready-to-drink Sunquick range at Penang’s E&O Hotel in September 2016, he used the speech to pay tribute. He credited the plant to two men who were not in the room: his late father and Jep Petersen, CO-RO’s founder, whose closeness to his father he described. He said: “Today I am proud to say that we did not let them down, we built and materialize their vision, making it a great accomplishment as can be witnessed by all of us today.” He delivered it again in November 2017 at the Barkath CO-RO plant, and the published text lists the plant’s honours.
The partnership earned public recognition. In April 2014 the Penang chief minister, Lim Guan Eng, and the Danish ambassador opened an annex to the Sunquick factory, and the state’s bulletin headlined Barkath Ali and Sunquick as the pride of Penang.
Staying a family #
Barkath Ali has been plain about what he will not change. In 2011 he told The Edge that the group had no plans to list. Kumpulan Barkath is registered as a private limited company, a Sdn Bhd. His brother, Anwar Kabir, is named chief executive on the group’s website, and Utusan reports that his brother helps him manage the business their late father entrusted to them. He was group chief executive when The Edge interviewed him in 2011, and chairman by the December 2025 anniversary.
The continuity he values most is in the product. At the group’s 80th anniversary in October 2020 he told Kosmo! that the taste of Hacks and Sunquick had not changed: “Kita boleh lihat, rasa gula-gula Hacks dan jus Sunquick yang kami hasilkan menggunakan resipi turun temurun masih tetap sama walaupun tahun silih berganti” — we can see that the taste of the Hacks sweets and Sunquick juice we make with recipes handed down through the generations remains the same as the years go by, in Brandmine’s translation. Sunquick, he added, held 55% of the Malaysian concentrate-drink category.
In May 2025, in an Utusan feature marking 75 years of Hacks, he told the paper that the company markets five flavours, and that “permintaan terhadap Hacks tidak pernah putus” — demand for Hacks has never broken off, in Brandmine’s translation. He is candid about the difficulty: “Ya, saya akui bukan senang untuk bertahan sehingga sekarang. Kalau sebut pasal pesaing, dari dulu kita sudah ada pesaing sebenarnya.” In Brandmine’s translation: yes, I admit it has not been easy to last until now, and as for competitors, we have in truth always had them.
The advice of a chairman #
In December 2025, as chairman, he received guests at the group’s 85th anniversary, held at its Hacks plant in Penang with the Raja Muda of Perlis officiating; according to the anniversary report, the family’s heirs were urged there to defend what had been built. The company’s calendar now runs to a centenary in 2040.
Asked by Utusan what he would tell other business owners, Barkath Ali gave an answer in a single line: “Berniagalah dengan ikhlas dan hargailah pekerja kita” — do business sincerely and value our workers, in Brandmine’s translation. For the chairman of a group that turned from importing to manufacturing, the lesson is about how to run a business, not what to make.
Researched 41 sources in English, Malay, Chinese.