Painting A Bigger Picture Of Health And Wellness

Racheal Tan, Chief Executive O cer of Wellous Sdn Bhd, one of Malaysia’s leading producers of personalised functional food, talks to Christina Thomas about the company’s exciting journey over the last 5 years; and its rapid rise in the Malaysian and regional markets.

ellous, is a homegrown W Malaysian brand that is rapidly gaining momentum in the functional food market. Helmed by Racheal Tan who holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Food Science and Technology from University Putra Malaysia, the company has grown rapidly in the last ve years. “Personalised Functional Food is the Next Future Food, referring to food ingredients that contain health functions to achieve optimum health”, explains Racheal.

Reflecting on the founding principles of the company, Racheal explains, “The founding of this company is based on the deep understanding that many people do have high demand for good quality health products that can be very hard to nd. Given the daily busy & stressful lifestyle, searching for the right functional food with health bene ts can be a real challenge, where many do not have the right knowledge and information on what is best to solve their health concerns.”

Much thought has been put into Wellous, and Racheal testi es, “We revolutionised the whole concept of delivering products & happiness to our customers’ doorsteps.”

She adds, “The challenges were mostly in the beginning, especially in the very rst year of setting up the business. Sales was slow, and no one believed in what we do.”

In the beginning, Wellous was not well-known and the commercial market was sceptical about making that rst online purchase. Racheal explains that the common perception among consumers was “I’d rather buy something imported from overseas or something branded.” However, with persistence and dedication, as well as Wellous’ continuous emphasis on product quality and e ectiveness, many consumers returned for more a er witnessing great e ects. This then led to word-of-mouth recommendations to family members, friends and others.

“That’s how we slowly gained the trust of our loyal customers,” beams Racheal.

All the hard work was well worth it as ve years down the road, Wellous is now a popular name within the functional food market in Malaysia.

In just a few years, Wellous has rapidly risen from a new brand to a key player in the wellness and beauty products industry. “I would attribute our success to being focused to o er the best for our customers,” says Racheal.

TIGER MILK KING –A WINNING PRODUCT

With the arrival of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, many people have become more concerned about their health and well-being, and are on the look-out for products that can o er them prevention and protection. To address this need, Wellous introduced a revolutionary product called Tiger Milk King (under Tigrox series), a functional food product to boost lung health. The product is derived from the Tiger Milk Mushroom, which is considered a national treasure in Malaysia, and is used by indigenous people to treat

cough, asthma, bronchitis, vomiting and fever.

Endorsed by the famous Malaysian Chinese DJ and celebrity host, Jack Lim, Tiger Milk King is the result of numerous research and development (R&D) e orts.

Today, Tigrox Tiger Milk King is a popular product among Wellous’ customers. “Wellous is the rst company to o er Tiger Milk Mushroom product in liquid form to consumers, leading the market on lung protection & immunity booster,” Racheal explains.

“We have strong repeat purchases & numerous testimonials on its e ectiveness. This gives Wellous a strong track record and product portfolio,” she adds.

KEY FOCUS AREAS IN ITS TARGET MARKET

Elaborating on her target market, Racheal explains, “We have a 12-series product line, with products targeted at speci c markets. For example, the Kids’ Series is to address the health needs of children.”

“We have another category targeted at women’s health addressing hormonal and uterus care, among others. Likewise, each of our products have di erent target markets. We want to draw the attention of consumers to the fact that “prevention is better than cure” – and most importantly, to prevent it correctly,” she stresses.

MEDICAL RESEARCH BOARD OF ADVISORY

Wellous has a Medical and Research Board of Advisory (MRBA) comprising a panel of 8 professional medical doctors, researchers, professors who have been invited onboard as pillars behind the research & development of revolutionary products.

“MRBA addresses our customers’ enquiries pertaining to before, during and a er consumption of our products, as well as any of their medical conditions & health tips. It is a value added feature to our customers because we care for our customers and we want to ensure optimum customer satisfaction & experience,” she shares.

EXCELLENT POTENTIAL IN THE MALAYSIAN MARKET

Talking about market conditions, Racheal points out that Malaysia is a big market to penetrate. “To us it is still a big untapped market,” she says.

She explains that the mentality of people has improved very much. “Prior to the pandemic, people had very little health consciousness or awareness, but today, people are more open, especially to lung protection & immunity booster products,” Racheal points out.

Harnessing on this opportunity, Wellous, which just recently won the 2021 SOBA Award for Best Use of Technology, is actively working to educate consumers and their dealers on health, functional food and supplements.

“We constantly invite doctors, professors and experts to give health talks to create awareness”, she emphasises. “A recent talk we had addressed the prevention of long-COVID and post COVID care,” she adds.

Talking about the key health concerns among Malaysians, Racheal explains the 12-series product line focused on addressing many health conditions, revolving around improper diets, mental health, and much more.

“Wellous today has 24 products to address health issues among Malaysians. We are into functional food which are ingredients with speci c health bene ts that we can develop into nished products for disease prevention and lifestyle purposes. Our products have numerous bene ts that can help our customers optimise their health condition,” she shares.

GLOBAL SOURCING OF QUALITY INGREDIENTS

Racheal attributes Wellous’ ability to achieve synergy between cutting edge food technology and natural herbs to produce innovative and e ective products, to the company’s great R&D team comprising nutritionists, pharmacists, dieticians and other professionals.

“We source all our best ingredients globally with strong emphasis on quality & e ectiveness. Having these good ingredients in every product, we ensure optimum e ectiveness & results desired by our customers,” she says.

O ering a few secrets into Wellous’ R&D e orts, Racheal says that the company emphasises on patented ingredients, which are proven, tested and processed meticulously.

“When we incorporate the best ingredients into our products, they are sure to provide greater e ectiveness,” she says. Basically, she makes sure that customers receive the best.

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“We stand in our customers’ shoes, and reflect on what our customers want, and provide them value for their money.”

This explains the company’s tagline – “We are our products’ rst customer”.

A COMPANY WITH A BIG HEART

Racheal reveals that ever since the company was founded, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has always been a priority, and part of its corporate culture.

Wellous is constantly on the look-out for needy causes to which it can contribute. “Every month we have an allocation solely for CSR purposes and to use the donation amount to help the needy, focusing on medical cases & community care”, she shares.

“We are very much beyond just promoting our products, instead we care about community needs. We emphasise on good values such as relationship-building, family bonding, love, warmth and positivity, among others,” says Racheal.

One of Wellous’ campaigns was the production of a heart-warming short lm call ‘The Moments’, for which every time it is shared by viewers, a certain amount of money is donated to selected charitable Non-pro t organisations.

Amidst the pandemic, one of the company’s major charity projects included the donation of 10,000 PPEs and 30,000 facemasks to KKM, to be distributed to health-care frontliner workers.

“We responded to the urgent need for PPEs and face-masks among doctors and healthcare workers,” she adds.

WELLOUS PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

“In April this year, we will be signing some partnerships with universities for several reasons that include providing career opportunities for fresh graduates, to engage these universities to produce technical reports based on scienti c studies on products, and funding top food technology students in various faculties in universities,” she elaborates.

Wellous will also be working with several institutions and governmental bodies to further position itself and strengthen its presence in the market. The company will also be adding more variety of products to its line-up this year, while also further spreading its wings into the international markets.

Aside from Malaysia, Wellous has management teams in Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Brunei, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, and China. They will be setting up operations in Thailand and Vietnam. Soon, Wellous will be erecting a booth at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) so that travellers have a chance to bring Wellous’ products home with them.

A SOLID COMPANY

“We have a centralised warehouse to ship our products to our international markets. Our products are all locally manufactured to the highest quality with HACCP, GMP and Halal certi cations,” Racheal explains.

To penetrate the o line market, there are also possibilities of producing products for the shelves in pharmacies, introducing physical stores, as well as carrying out roadshows and more promotional campaigns to reach out to the untapped market segments.

Wellous has won numerous industry excellence awards over the years and continues to trailblaze the functional food industry.