Lee Biscuits, a 92-year-old brand founded by Singapore’s late tycoon Lee Kong Chian, is ending production and shutting its factory in Johor by end-October, leaving around 300 workers without jobs.

Suppliers and customers received notification of the halt last month. A senior manager told China Press that warehouse sales held over the last two weeks have sold out all remaining biscuit stocks.

Customers attempting to buy products directly from the factory are now being redirected to retail outlets instead. The company has announced no future production plans for the biscuit brand, which is also known as Nam Lee.

The manufacturing shutdown removes an established pantry staple from Malaysia’s independent grocers and sundry stores. The brand built its business on bulk tin formats and plastic packs containing soda crackers, Marie biscuits, banana tarts, iced gems, lemon sandwich biscuits, animal crackers, and spirulina whole wheat biscuits.

Those products filled store displays across both West Malaysia and Singapore for decades, serving as low-cost volume drivers for neighborhood provision shops. With internal warehouse inventory cleared out entirely, distributors face an immediate supply cut once existing shop-floor stock runs dry over the coming weeks.

The shutdown forms part of a broader corporate restructuring by the parent holding group to abandon consumer-facing packaged goods entirely. Capital is shifting back into upstream primary commodities, concentrating operations around rubber processing and palm oil plantations.

For retailers and shelf planners, the departure opens up shelf space in the value cracker category. Operators relying on traditional sundry distribution face losing a heritage brand that required zero promotional spending to drive volume.

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