Issues and challenges of micro food entrepreneurs in Dungun, Terengganu / Zainuddin Zakaria ... [et al.]

This project is based on the concern of the university on the issue of small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) and micro-businesses in the food processing industry. The research was conducted also to support the government's aspirations under the Rural Transformation Project (PTLB). These objectives can be realized through good quality food processing research because the field of dry and frozen food processing has the potential to create job opportunities among Malaysians, especially in rural and suburban areas. A qualitative research approach was adopted with exploratory, inductive research. The sampling method used in this research is purposive sampling since only respondents with the selected criteria will be considered as a respondent in the study. The researchers targeted 60% of the food-based entrepreneurs registered with Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) of Dungun and Lembaga Terengganu Tengah (KETENGAH), however, 20 entrepreneurs were selected based on the entrepreneurs list provided by MARA of Dungun and KETENGAH. They are involved in the food industry by manufacturing products such as frozen food, dry chips, cakes, fruit juice etc. In this paper, we discovered that among the issues faced by the entrepreneur are the lack of competitiveness and marketing effectiveness. They also have many challenges to overcome, especially in packaging, labelling, managing financial records and choosing the most effective promotional tools. In this paper, we also highlighted the business problems faced by entrepreneurs. Among the problems explored are internal factors, external factors, packaging, storage, and branding. In addition, they are also facing problems in acquiring nutritional labelling and food standard certification such as MESTI, GMP and HALAL certifications. The researchers also proposed several strategies for entrepreneurs to overcome the problem. We believe this project can help them address the problems and challenges mentioned earlier as the proposed project is a holistic project that will help them to become competitive and quality-conscious entrepreneurs. This project will also help entrepreneurs and food stall operators to improve the quality of their food products.