The participation of Amoy Food in the Hong Kong Products Exhibition

Amoy’s then managing director, Wong Tuk Sau, had served as president of the CMA for many years. As Amoy was an important member of the CMA, it had participated in several Product Expo events after World War II, investing large sums of money in preparing for each occasion. The Amoy booths at these shows were very special and sometimes won the Expo’s booth design award. Other well known exhibitors in those years included Crocodile and Union shirts, Pak FahYeow and Shaw Brothers. Amoy’s purpose ofjoining the exhibitions was to promote itself by selling high-priced products such as Gold Label Soy Sauce at special booth prices slightly belowthe regular price. Amoy’s staff were generally given entry tickets for them to visit the exhibitions with their family members and friends. Cheng Yum Kwai was not involved in the preparation of Amoy’s booths and only visited the exhibitions and helped out in delivering materialswhile he waswith the general affairs department. Internally, Amoy did not go out of its way to publicise the exhibitions but employees were encouraged to attend them. Staff seldom bought goods from the company’s booths as the Staff Welfare Association already provided them with discounted items.

Miss ginger and Miss HKPE who represented Amoy at each of the exhibitions were recruited from outsideand not from among the staff. Amoy’s in-house advertising department generally was responsible for preparing the company’s booths as most of its staff had strong advertising background. Once it had prepared the drawings and ideas for the expo booths, the advertising department then commissioned specialist design companies to actualise their concepts. Amoy eventually dissolvedthe advertising department following the closure of the Green Spot plant in 1978. In the years up until then, the advertising department was mainly responsible for promoting Green Spot beverages whereas the promotionpublicity for other products wasout-sourced to advertising companies. The CMA was the main organisation in which Amoy’s managerhad participated. Although the Cheng and Huang families who founded Amoy came from Fujian, Amoy was not active in the Fujianese associations, and in 1949 severedthe relationship with its parent company in Xiamen. From then up to now Amoy’s main competitors were Lee Kum Kee and Doll Dim Sum.