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A Collection Of Empty 'Hacks' Tins
The photographs in this entry are those of six different empty Hacks tins. Hacks sweets were manufactured by White Hudson & Co. Ltd in Southport, England. Each first tin would have contained 5 pounds weight of Hacks sweets in different flavours. They were collected piecemeal from Ipoh, Penang, Kedah and Kuala Lumpur.
In 1922, an enterprising Englishman created a recipe for cough relief in the form a sweet. He called it "HACKS". It become a popular his hometown, Southport, Lancashire, England and White, Hudson Company Ltd of Stockport became the sole manufacturer and supplier.The company eventually provides HACKS in a variety of traditional candy flavours for all tastes and preferences. Flavours include Original (of which there is more than one version of tin), Honey Lemon, Blackcurrant, Mandarin & Ginger, Menthol and Eucalyptus and Clove & Apple and they came in 5 pound tins. At one stage Hudson's also had a factory in Liverpool and the tin on the right of the above photograph is from that factory, whereas the others pictured are all from the Stockport factory.
Hacks Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Member of Kumpulan Barkath) has roots from 1940 when a visionary entrepreneur, the late Haji Abu Backer Bin Mohd Hussain, founded a sundry shop called Barkath Stores in Union Street, Penang. “Barkath” means “Blessed” in Arabic. Later the sundry shop housed its goods of retail Super Stores in 6 cities.
In the mid-50s when late Haji Abu Backer seeing the potential in HACKS medicated cough sweets, he contacted the manufacturers in England and convinced them that there was a market in this region. Impressed by his assessment, they appointed Barkath Stores as the sole agent for HACKS for Malaya and Singapore.
In the mid 1960's, Haji Abu Backer, an enterprise man with great foresight, obtained manufacturing rights from the original makers of Hacks sweets from England and set up a manufacturing base in Mak Mandin, Penang.
Our collection includes: Three different Original, Honey Lemon, Mandarin & Ginger and Menthol and Eucalyptus.
Note: Recently (2021), we've added 4 more Hacks Sweet tins to our collection.