Yong showing some of her homemade cookies.
MIRI (Feb 7): The demand for homemade cookies continues for the upcoming Chinese New Year (CNY) celebration despite the current Covid-19 pandemic, said part-time home baker Yong Siew Ling.
Yong, 47, said that each year she would sell at least 500 containers of cookies and surprisingly this year, she sold the same amount of cookies despite the pandemic.
“I thought there would be decline in orders for my cookies, but surprisingly I have been receiving a lot of orders,” she said when met by The Borneo Post here today.
Yong, who also owns a small business selling reload coupons in the city centre, said she started baking and selling homemade cookies 16 years ago.
It all started with her love for baking and wanting to earn extra money.
“I am selling around 70 types of different cookies. Some of them are actually made by my relatives and friends who ask me to help them selling, while some are made by myself,” said Yong.
According to Yong, when she first started, she only made a few types of cookies. However, her skills improved throughout the years and now she can make a variety of cookies which have received good feedbacks from her loyal customers who would order from her every year.
For this year’s CNY, Yong said she started receiving orders since December last year.
“I make sure to receive their orders early because making these cookies needs a lot of time and energy. For example, making “Popiah rolls” requires a lot of time and I can only make five containers daily,” said Yong.
Yong said she does not have any assistant but her younger sister who works at a bank does help her with the packaging whenever she is free.
Among her famous cookies are arrow head chips, Cornflour cookies, Momo, pineapple tart, fried cashew nuts, butter cookies and also cranberry cookies which are sold between RM24 and RM32.
When asked about her plan for this years’ CNY, Yong said she would celebrate the occasion with her parents at their home in Taman Tunku.
“It is sad that we cannot go anywhere this year because every year during the CNY, my big family would travel to different places. But this year, we had to cancel all our plans due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Yong.
The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) yesterday issued a reminder on the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for CNY.
Among the SOPs laid out are that only a maximum of 20 family members would be allowed for the CNY eve reunion dinner and open house and house-to-house visits are not allowed.
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