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Cold Storage Company Social And Sport Magazine
This magazine contains a variety of articles from the different branches of Cold Storage across Malaya and Singapore. The following articles relate to Ipoh:
Sam Poh Tong Cave Temple
Ipoh Development (Bakery and Supermarket)
First IpohTalentime
A Brief History of Cold Storage
Beginning in the 1896, Cold Storage has extended its reach to the Federated Malay States comprising of Selangor, Perak, Pahang and Negeri Sembilan.
A retail branch of Cold Storage was opened by The Company along McArthur Street owned by the Straits Trading Company. Not too long after that, the piece of land along the river bank was bought over and converted into the first Cold Storage cold store for holding bulk supplies. The Singapore Cold Storage Company Limited was first registered in Singapore in 1903.
The company was formed for the purpose of providing cold storage, and carrying on the business of storing and distributing frozen beef, mutton, lamb, game, fresh butter, fruit and other Australian food supplies and products. In its early days, the Company's primary concern was to have a quick and profitable turnover of its imported meats and range of products, the first consignment of which (frozen meats, fresh butter and milk) arrived on the S.S.Guthrie of the Burns Philip Line in 1905. Immediately retail depots at Orchard Road and Borneo Wharf opened for business and before long frozen goods were travelling into Peninsula Malaya.
In September 1909, K.A Stevens and Fred Heron arrived in Ipoh to pioneer Cold Storage to a tin-mining town. Their idea was to have a retail and wholesale depot, complete with a cold storage chamber capable of holding five tons of frozen meat and products.
Over the next few years, Cold Storage established branches in Klang, Penang, Taiping and Telok Anson. As our history permits us to know, we had European settlers in Malaysia already during that point and the arrival of fresh meat and products from foreign countries such as Australia was very popular. By 1932, the reliability and presence of Cold Storage was already in most Malayan towns.
Cold Storage has now opened 14 operational stores to this date including in Penang, Johor and Sarawak. On top of that, Cold Storage also produces its own homebrand, First Choice which offers premium quality at great prices. Our products range from fresh produce like meat, fruits and vegetables and bakery items to your everyday household needs like cleaning, health, beauty and other products.
Further expansions brought them a 60 acre dairy farm producing the company’s own products at Upper Bukit Timah, Singapore in 1929 and the following year they entered the bakery business by acquiring Singapore’s Royal Bakery. A subsidiary company, Cold Storage Creameries Limited, was added in 1937, in association with San Miguel of the Philippines and “Magnolia” brand ice-cream was introduced.
Once the Japanese Occupation of Malaya took hold in 1942, the company no longer functioned, but after the Japanese surrender in 1945 Cold Storage’s ice factories quickly resumed production and full business operations were resumed at the end of 1946. Just 7 years later, at their Golden Jubilee in 1953, the company boasted a chain of 19 stores across Singapore and Malaya.
In 1959, the concept of “self-service” and supermarket was officially introduced and used in all Cold Storage stores to give us the Cold Storage Supermarket we know today.
To see a summary of the Sam Poh Tong article, click here.
To see a summary of the Ipoh Development (Bakery and Supermarket) article, click here.
To see a summary of the 1960 First Ipoh Talentime article, click here.