Ayam Brand™ Community Care Campaign 2019 Takes the Message of Balanced Nutrition To Sarawak To Fight Childhood Obesity
Supports Three Local Children’s Homes with 47,340 Healthy Meals Food Supply
Sarawak, November 6, 2019 – Was your last meal a Malaysian Healthy 3S plate – 3S being short for #sukusukuseparuh, or quarter, quarter, half? Ministry of Health Malaysia promotes Suku-Suku Separuh, the division of plate portion to a quarter for protein, a quarter for complex carbohydrates and half for fruits and vegetables. It is an easy way to portion out the types of food our body needs.
The Malaysian Healthy 3S Plate is not the norm for most of us, which has led to an obesity epidemic among adults, and children. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Tackling Obesity in ASEAN Report[1], Malaysia’s prevalence of obesity is at 13.3%, which is the highest in South East Asia. Malaysia was among the top three countries in Asia[2] with high percentage 11.5% of obese children, aged between six months and 12 years.
Ayam Brand™, a homegrown household name famed for its wide range of quality, no preservatives and no added MSG, healthy and convenient canned food, is taking on the big issue of obesity among Malaysian children by incorporating the 3S concept of the Malaysian Healthy Plate into its annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme. This year, the brand is expanding the CSR program to children from primary schools as well.
The theme for this year’s campaign is ‘Ayam Brand™ Community Care Campaign 2019, Get Healthy Malaysia, Start Now’. It will empower children from 10 states with information to identify healthier food choices and equip them with skills to prepare their own Malaysian Healthy Plate meal. The program is open to children from eight years up.
For a balanced meal, one quarter of the plate should be protein that can be found in fish, beans, meat, poultry, eggs, in palm-sized portion; one quarter of carbohydrate from rice, noodle, bread, cereals, wholegrain products, in fist-sized portion, and half the plate with vegetables and fruits, in palm-sized.
In Sarawak, 20 children from Kompleks Kebajikan Laila Taib, Rumah Kanak-Kanak Toh Puan Hajah Norkiah Kuching, Salvation Army Kuching, SK. Batu Lintang and SJK (C) Chung Hua No 3 participated in the informative, challenging and fun ‘Ayam Brand™ Community Care Campaign 2019, Get Healthy Malaysia, Start Now’.
The event kicked off with an interactive introduction to the #sukusukuseparuh concept, followed by five teams of five children preparing a meal based on the 3S principles, within 30 minutes with minimal assistance from adults, using recipes that have been vetted by nutritionist.
While waiting for their Malaysian Healthy Plate meals to be evaluated the children were challenged with games that required Higher Order Thinking Skills to reinforce what they had learned on good nutrition.
According to Ayam Brand™ Borneo Manager, Mr. Tan Yann Yu, the CSR campaign which is now in its twelfth year has contributed 1.76 million healthy meals for charity, providing nutritious food to more than 20,000 people from 482 charity homes and NGOs.
“As a leader in the Malaysian food industry for more than 100 years, Ayam Brand™ is extremely concerned on the obesity epidemic in the country and set out to assist, starting with children as they are the once who are most teachable and reachable. We developed the Get Healthy Malaysia, Start Now program with the hope that we could help reduce child obesity by equipping children with the knowledge and skills to choose, make and prepare more nutritious foods,” Mr Tan Yann Yu said.
“We have been carrying out our annual CSR campaign for 12 years, and it was time for us to expand it to benefit more children by bringing them the 3S message through activations that would make it easy to understand, with tips that they could use at home, and share with their friends and family,” he added.
“Today I learnt that I need to eat more vegetables, fruits and proteins, and reduce the rice and bread that I like so much. The food I made today was very tasty, and it was healthy too. I will try to eat balanced meals every day to be healthier, and will do more exercise,” said one of the participants.
Ayam Brand™ is taking the campaign online and amplifying it via social media through activations such as the Show Us Your Healthy Plate contest, as well as sharing the live updates of the event.
The four charity homes received two months’ supply of Ayam Brand™ products equivalent to 47,340 healthy meals for the total of 263 residents at these homes.
The winning team for the Ayam Brand Suku-Suku Separuh Healthy Festival 2019 in Sarawak was Rumah Kanak-Kanak Toh Puan Hajah Norkiah Kuching. The team received a trophy and certificates from Ayam Brand for their Malaysian Healthy Plate of fried rice, tuna cupcake and baked beans and corn salad.
“Ayam Brand™ has been supporting NGOs for many years, and homes always look forward to being selected as their product contribution has seen many a home through tough times when donations were scarce. Our thanks to Ayam Brand™ for consistently caring for the community,” said Kompleks Kebajikan Hamidah Yakup representative.
Want to help more communities? Visit the Ayam Brand™ e-charity at https://www.ayambrand.com.my/e-charity.html and purchase Ayam Brand products to be contributed to a charity of your choice. The Ayam Brand™ e-charity offers 15% off retail prices, and free delivery to make it easier for more charity organisations to Get Healthy Malaysia, Start Now.
About Ayam Brand
Ayam Brand, a household name in Malaysia and Asia for 127 years, is famed for its wide range of quality and healthy canned food that are preservative free and contain no added MSG. Ayam Brand products are manufactured in state-of-the-art facilities that meet the highest international standards with worldwide-recognized certifications (HACCP, ISO 9001) and are certified ‘Halal’. For the past four consecutive years from 2013 to 2016, Ayam Brand has been ranked in the Top 10 as Malaysia’s most chosen FMCG brands, according to Kantar Worldpanel’s Brand Footprint Study.
For more information on Ayam Brand, please visit www.ayambrand.com.my or join https://www.facebook.com/ayambrandmalaysia.
