EXERCISE 1 : MARKET RESEARCH (Nur Zarith Sofea Binti Ahmad Shakir_0139279)

 Market Research of Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia

1.    What is Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia and when was it founded?

YAYASAN FOOD BANK MALAYSIA (YFBM) is a Non-Profit Non-Government Organization (NGO) that actively works on social responsibility programs. Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia was established on 7 January 2019 (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

2.     Why was Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia established?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia is a charitable organization placed under jurisdiction of the Minister Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs to ensure a more systematic and orderly management of Food Bank Malaysia Program. It aims to reduce food waste while also addressing the issue of the increasing cost of living, especially for the underprivileged communities (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

3.     Who manages Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia is managed by the board of trustees along with the executive team led by the CEO, Johan Halid (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

4.     What is Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia’s mission?

Its mission is to aim for “Zero hunger” communities by providing abundant food supply and necessities. Furthermore, it also aims a “Zero waste” nation by rescuing surplus food from the food industry players and redistributing them back to the B40 households in Malaysia (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

5.     What is its Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia’s vision?

Its vision is to become the leader of Food Banking in Malaysia by 2030. YFBM is committed to expanding their reach to make their services accessible to all groups, fostering partnerships for greater impact, innovating sustainable solutions, raising awareness about food waste andb empowering communities with helping them achieve long term food security (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

6.    What is the core cause and what Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) does Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia support?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia’s core cause is to reduce food waste by rescuing surplus food and aiming for ‘Zero Hunger’ and ‘Zero Waste’ Malaysia. Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia supports a few SDGs including SDG 1 (No poverty) because by providing food aid, it helps with reducing living costs for B40 communities, SDG 2 (Zero hunger) as their main mission is to provide food access to their underprivileged communities, SDG 4 (Quality education) as they support students in forms of food aid and education and SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production) as they rescue surplus food and redistribute them through proper procedure (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

7.     Who are Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia’s strategic partners? 

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia’s strategic partners include Sahabat Jariah, Legasi Z Sufi, The Lost Food Project, Food Aid Foundation, MUTIARA food bank and Kechara Tsem Rinpoche organization (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

8.     Who has collaborated with YFBM?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia has collaborated with multiple organizations such as Nestle, LOTUS, Etika, AEON, Econsave, NSK Wholesale Supermarket, local universities, schools and more to run food aid campaigns and programs (Citizen Journal, 2025; CSR Malaysia, 2021; World of Buzz, 2022)

 

9.     What type of approach does Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia use to provide support?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia rescues surplus food from the manufacturer, wholesaler, hypermarket and hotel industry. Afterwards, they will sort and redistribute it to the identified targeted B40 communities in higher learning institutions, charity homes, welfare centers and Program Perumahan Rakyat Termiskin along with their partners to reduce food waste (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

10.  What are Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia’s latest creative campaigns?

One of YFBM’s creative campaign is The Good Cause – Virtual Food Bank Drive conducted in 2024. Its purpose was to collect online donation for food distribution (OSK Group, 2024). Other than that, they have ongoing campaigns such as Misi Bantuan Kecemasan Banjir, an online donation campaign with the aim of contributing flood relief to disaster victims. Currently, it has raised around 5,123.32 Ringgit Malaysia. Food Bank Runcit Initiatif is also one of their ongoing online donation campaigns with the goal of providing supply of basic goods that can last up to two months (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

11.  What are Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia’s programs?

YFBM runs programs like Food Bank Cares, a program by Yayasan Bank Food Bank Malaysia that focuses on providing institutions such as orphanages, homes for the handicapped, special needs groups and old folks’ homes with food aid and necessities. Kembara Merdeka is also one of their programs with the purpose of fostering patriotism and encouraging social responsibilities among Malaysians. It involves activities such as food distribution drives, community service project, educational workshops and cultural events that bring together participants from multiple backgrounds (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025). 

 

12.  How does Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia connect with their targeted communities?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia connects with their beneficiaries through their partners, universities, welfare homes, local NGO’s that assist in identifying the B40 groups. Additionally, they frequently conduct food distribution programs, online donation campaigns and seasonal campaigns (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

 

13.  How does Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia make the public engaged with their programs and campaigns?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia often promote and post online donation links on their websites and social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and X. Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia constantly updates their ongoing or upcoming projects to raise awareness and engage with the public (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

14.  What communities does Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia serve?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia target beneficiaries are B40 households, people with special abilities, aboriginals, welfare centers charity homes and disaster victims (Wiki Impact, 2023; Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

15.  What are the strengths of Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia?

They have strong government support and relations as they were created under the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs. They also have a large network of partners from a variety of sectors such as hotels, wholesalers, hypermarkets, manufacturers and many more (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

16.  What internal challenges does Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia face?

As a food bank, YFBM must deal with the short shelf life of rescued surplus food every day.  Aside from that, YFBM operates and heavily rely on donations and corporate support (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

17.  What opportunities can Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia explore in the future?

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia could expand by hosting talks, offering classes or workshops on nutrition education, cooking and reducing food waste in local libraries and community centers. They could also partner up with catering services, local restaurants, universities or office cafeterias to collect edible surplus food to redistribute (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

18.  What threats does Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia face?

One of the main external threats come from the economic environment. Economic factors such as downturns and donor fatigue can potentially affect or decrease the amount of donations received. Inflation is also an unpredictable common factor for the organization. It usually results in high operational costs including costs for logistics, warehousing and food (Hassandarvish, 2022). 

 

19.  How does Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia ensure food safety and quality in donations?

YFBM ensures food safety and quality in donations by following a structured process. When goods from contributors are received, they are logged into the inventory system which guarantees donations are tracked accurately. Afterwards, goods are grouped under specific categories where items undergo quality inspection to maintain food safety. The goods are then stored in proper storage conditions to preserve quality and longevity of the items. Finally, the products are distributed to the approved location (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

 

20.  What is the evolution journey of Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia since its founding?

In 2019, Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia was established. YFBM initially started with their  Food Bank Siswa program, aiming to support low-income students from B40 households. It then begun forming strategic partnerships and collaborating with them for programs and campaigns which helped increase the distribution reach. By 2022, Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia has expanded its distributing operations to Sarawak (Bernama, 2022) Recently, they have started exploring towards seasonal, online donation and emergency relief campaigns (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025; Tay, 2025).

 

21.  What has Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia achieved in the previous year?

In 2024, They have fed over 247,623 households in need and have rescued around 323,398.41 tonnes of edible surplus food. Moreover, it saved 2,573,685.91 Ringgit Malaysia (RM) worth of food (Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia, 2025).

  

 

Reflection

Through this market research, I’ve developed skills in both analyzing as well as gathering data and information. This was the first time I’ve researched and explored the work of Non-Governmental Organizations, and it was an experience that I believe is going to help me in future tasks and projects. I’ve also realized that carrying out research about a particular NGO requires thorough searching and that surface level search is not sufficient. What I found challenging was finding up to date information, verifying and cross checking all the information that I have gathered before stating them in my answers. It was the most time-consuming process. Coming up with questions that give in depth information about this NGO was also quite difficult. Despite all that, this research has sharpened my researched abilities. Moreover, I found the website easy to work with as it is well equipped with information which made the research smooth overall. This project has given me some sense of how a market research should be conducted and will help me improve in similar tasks in the future.

 

Reference list 

BERNAMA. (2022, February 11). Lebih 21,000 siswa terima manfaat program Food Bank Siswa di IPT. BERNAMA. https://www.bernama.com/bm/news.php?id=2134558

 

Citizen Journal. (2025, February 14). Etika partners with Yayasan Food Bank for flood relief - Citizens Journal. Citizens Journal - Community, Food and Lifestyle. https://cj.my/152254/etika-partners-with-yayasan-food-bank-for-flood-relief/#google_vignette

 

CSR Malaysia. (2021, September 15). Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia’s latest initiative aims to create an easily accessible food supply chain for local communities. CSR Malaysia. https://csrmalaysia.org/yayasan-food-bank-malaysias-latest-initiative-aims-to-create-a-easily-accessible-food-supply-chain-for-local-communities/

 

Hassandarvish, M. (2022, July 21). Rising prices, fewer donations: Malaysian NGOs giving food aid feel the pinch following price hikes. Malay Mail. https://www.malaymail.com/news/life/2022/07/21/rising-prices-fewer-donations-malaysian-ngos-giving-food-aid-feel-the-pinch-following-price-hikes/18401

 

OSK Group. (2024, September 6). OSK Property and OSK Foundation collaborate with Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia for a virtual food bank drive to aid B40 families. OSK Group. https://www.oskgroup.com/osk-property-and-osk-foundation-collaborate-with-yayasan-food-bank-malaysia-for-a-virtual-food-bank-drive-to-aid-b40-families/

 

Tay, N. (2025, February 14). Etika’s Commitment To Malaysia: Providing Aid With Over RM250,000 Contribution To Flood-Affected States And Families. MARKETING Magazine Asia. https://marketingmagazine.com.my/etikas-commitment-to-malaysia-providing-aid-with-over-rm250000-contribution-to-flood-affected-states-and-families/

 

Wiki Impact. (2023, August 7). From waste to plate: 7 organisations on a mission to rescue food to alleviate hunger. Wiki Impact. https://www.wikiimpact.com/from-waste-to-plate-7-organisations-on-a-mission-to-rescue-food-to-alleviate-hunger/

 

Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia. (2025, June 4). Home | Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia. Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia | TOGETHER WE SERVE THE COMMUNITY. https://yfbm.org/