Did You Know Gardenia Products are Sold For Almost 3x the Price in Sabah and Sarawak? Here’s Why

Being broke every once in a while seems to be every Malaysian’s new favourite past time. So, what do you eat when you’re broke after splurging on overpriced bubble tea and fancy dinners? The RM0.90 Gardenia buns, of course! I mean, what else can you completely stuff yourself with on an RM2.00 budget?

Every Malaysian does this, so much so that Sarawakians and Sabahans who visit the Peninsula carry boxes of them home. But that begs the question, don’t they have Gardenia buns over there? The answer is yes, they do, but the prices will blow your mind.

Trash (@pikijat), who is Sarawakian, took to his Twitter to showcase the box full of buns he carried back with him from KL, to which he captioned, “Typical Sarawakian coming back from KL.”

typical sarawakian coming back from KL: pic.twitter.com/s7OWhGE87Z

— 𝕚𝕛𝕒𝕥 (@dscriptkiddie) July 13, 2019

Us Peninsular people wouldn’t understand this struggle considering we can easily purchase most of the goodies in that picture from the nearest 7 Eleven for less than RM1, so West Malaysian netizens took to the thread to further elaborate on why they have to do this.

Source: Twitter

Loaves of Gardenia breads can come up close to RM10 in Sabah and Sarawak, while we get to enjoy them for a mere RM2.50.

Source: Twitter

Whereas, the RM0.90 buns that we resort to during hard times are being sold for RM2.30, which is literally almost triple the price!

Some netizens also helped explain just why these buns are not only expensive but also somewhat difficult to get in Sabah and Sarawak.

Source: Twitter

This comment goes, “For those who are asking why Gardenia is expensive in Sabah and Sarawak. It’s because of the cost to bring the buns and breads over by flight as the baked goods can only stay fresh for 3 to 4 days. So the cost of the flights and ground distribution makes it expensive.”

Source: Twitter

The reason behind all of this is apparently because the Gardenia found throughout Peninsular Malaysia is distributed by Gardenia Bakeries (KL) Sdn Bhd (GBKL), whereas the ones found in Sabah and Sarawak come from Gardenia Food Industries Sdn Bhd – which is a completely different entity, and they are not allowed to cross-sell into each other’s territory.

Sabahans and Sarawakians prefer the Gardenia baked goods you can get in the Peninsular mainly because it’s tastier, better in quality and cheaper compared to their West Malaysian counterparts.

Trash’s posting has since garnered over 1,400 retweets.

So hey, the next time you want to be a good friend to your Sabahan and Sarawakian mates, send them a nice fat box of Gardenia goods.

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