A&W brings A&Wesome-ness back!
A&W brings A&Wesome-ness back!
Malaysia’s first Quick Service Restaurant chain wins new generation of customers with quality, service and innovation
Petaling Jaya, 29 November 2019 -- 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.
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| (L-R) David Lee, Director of A Great American Brand Sdn Bhd; George Ang, Chief Executive Officer of A&W Malaysia Sdn Bhd; Rooty® the Great Root Bear; Andrew Khew, Brand General Manager of A&W Malaysia Sdn Bhd; Kareen Woo, Chief Marketing Officer of A&W Malaysia Sdn Bhd; and Celestine Liew, Chief Financial Officer of A&W Malaysia Sdn Bhd at the media launch of A&W’s first ever A&Wesome Festival. |
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.
Ever since Ang came on board, he and his team have been working on value and service enhancing initiatives to appeal to this group of consumers. This include the use of fresh chicken instead of frozen chicken; maintaining food quality by preserving the cook to order system to provide fresh, warm food to consumers; and most importantly, innovating tantalizing meals that appeal to the Malaysian taste buds for a limited time only.
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.
“Our desserts are already a favourite among customers in our outlets. The new dessert kiosk concept with our signature Float on Cone would definitely gain attention and drools among our younger target customers!” added Ang.
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.
“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.
Ever since Ang came on board, he and his team have been working on value and service enhancing initiatives to appeal to this group of consumers. This include the use of fresh chicken instead of frozen chicken; maintaining food quality by preserving the cook to order system to provide fresh, warm food to consumers; and most importantly, innovating tantalizing meals that appeal to the Malaysian taste buds for a limited time only.
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.
“Our desserts are already a favourite among customers in our outlets. The new dessert kiosk concept with our signature Float on Cone would definitely gain attention and drools among our younger target customers!” added Ang.
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.
I went back to see it's first outlet recently. So much fond memories of my parents and uncle who brought me there. I still love to eat their hot dogs and root beer float.
ReplyDeleteSo it was a good recent memory too?
DeleteHope it is coming over to this part of the country soon.
ReplyDeleteHope so too!
DeleteHope it will never go away because I love to eat coney sausages and rootbeer float!
ReplyDeleteSame here!
DeleteJust visited the outlet in MV for the first time last week.
😁
Sudah lama I never go to A&W. I used to enjoy their coney dog and fish sandwich. Must have the rootbeer float too or else like not complete hah..hah...
ReplyDeleteSame la. Hahaha
Delete