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Patty:
In 1978, Ramly bin Mokni, was working in a supermarket when someone asked him if they had burger patties made by bumiputera. Back then, the ‘halal’ landscape was different, the JAKIM Halal certification on food were newly introduced. So as a rule of thumb, Muslims had tended to just avoid eating at non-Muslim restaurants before the introduction of the JAKIM certificate, to be safe. Plus, burgers were seen as a Western cuisine, so it was rare for Muslims to indulge on ‘em. This was Ramly’s ‘Aha’ moment! He decided to start making halal patties with his wife.
Grill:
Ramly tried applying for a RM7k loan for his new patty business from MARA but was rejected. That was how foreign the concept of ‘halal burgers’ were. So, he used RM2k of his savings and made the patties at home. On average, he produced 200 patties a day. It was an uphill battle, as people weren’t that interested to eat burgers too. But he kept trying and opened his own burger stall near Chow Kit, selling both the cooked and frozen patties. Slowly, his burgers became popular and his production grew to 3,000/day. By 1984, he opened a 100k sqft factory in KL. Soon, more factories were opened to scale up to 1 million patties a day. Other products were introduced too ie. nuggets, sausages etc. With countless roadside stalls all across the country, Ramly Burger has become the de facto national burger.
Besides all the burger stalls, and Ramly marts, Ramly also has a chain of fast-food restaurants across Malaysia. While still not as prominent, who knows, they might beat the big boys one day and be what Jollibee is to The Philippines.
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