Nuraisyah (left) and Siti Aminah holding their products at the Hawkers and Small Traders Carnival 2023 in Buhavan Square.
PENAMPANG (Dec 7): Two friends travelled all the way from Pitas, about 200 kilometres from here, to participate in the Hawkers and Small Traders Carnival (HPPK) 2023 in Buhavan Square.
Nuraisyah Omar and Siti Aminah Suari, both 40, are currently developing their own food and beverage products.
“We were invited to open a pop-up booth at HPPK, and this is our first time participating in event like this. We normally sell in our village area, and deliver from home to home,” said Siti Aminah.
Siti Aminah is selling a pre-cooked Ayam Pandan, a business guided by the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry.
“I am so excited with the response from the customers here, who are mostly office workers around Donggongon. They even bought in bulk for their outing activity in the weekend.
“I also had the chance to meet up new friends and exchange ideas on how to improve my products,” said Siti Aminah who also sells crackers.
Nuraisyah, who recently received a packaging grant from the Ministry of Industrial Development and Entrepreneurship, said her Serunding Ketam (crab floss) received a lot of positive response from the crowd and managed to sell a few packs on the first day of the carnival.
“My Serunding Ketam has been in the market for a few years now, and I am currently developing my pineapple cordial drinks.
“My family have been growing pineapple for many years now and we have so much of it until we don’t know what to do.
“The idea of making cordial came into the picture because of the situation and now, we don’t have enough supplies. We have to buy from other districts to meet up the production demand,” she said.
Nuraisyah and Siti Aminah who have been friends since high school, are currently starting their own pineapple farm in Pitas.
After attending a pineapple farming course recently, they both decided to grow their own pineapple to develop it into food products.
“We want to encourage farmers in Pitas to grow more pineapple so that we can develop more pineapple-based products because the potential is there,” added Nuraisyah.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim launched the carnival on Thursday.
The three-day carnival is held in Buhavan Square until Saturday with 300 booths from 50 exhibitors, 30 food trucks, 190 stalls, well as 14 booths participating, offering various products such as food and beverages, crafts, clothing and more.