EPB Group Berhad is one of those Malaysian companies most consumers will probably never encounter by name, even though its business sits behind something everyone buys: food.
Coffee has to be measured and packed. Chilli sauce has to be processed and filled. Sausages and frozen food move through multiple production stages before they are sealed, packed and sent out of a factory.
The brand on the finished product gets the attention.
EPB builds the machinery behind part of that process.
From Penang, the company designs, fabricates and integrates food-processing and packaging systems for manufacturers in Malaysia and overseas.
Its operating history stretches back more than three decades. Today, the group generates more than RM120 million in annual revenue, gets most of its sales from outside Malaysia and is expanding into robotics and more advanced factory automation.
The story began in 1992 with manual packaging machines.
EPB Group’s operating history traces back to 20 May 1992, when founder Yeoh Chee Min established New Tech Machinery.
The original business mainly traded manual packaging machines for food manufacturers, including companies producing instant coffee, tea, condiments and confectionery.
Over the next few years, it expanded into imported food-packaging equipment.
Frozen-food processing machinery followed in 1998.
Then came an important change.
In 1999, the business started fabricating food-processing and packaging machines itself instead of relying entirely on equipment supplied by other manufacturers.
By 2005, it had moved beyond selling individual machines.
The company began designing, customising, fabricating and integrating complete food-processing and packaging production lines according to what each customer needed.
That changed the nature of the business.
A food manufacturer does not always need one standalone machine. It may need multiple processes to work together continuously.
Coffee powder behaves differently from chilli sauce. Frozen meat products require another type of handling. Filling bottles is different from packing powder into sachets.
Each factory also has its own floor space, production volume, packaging format and workflow.
EPB gradually built its expertise around putting those pieces together.
Today, EPB Group Berhad operates as a one-stop food-processing and packaging machinery solutions provider.
Its work can include designing a production system, customising machinery, fabricating equipment and integrating different machines into one automated line.
Some equipment is manufactured internally. Other specialised machinery may come from third-party suppliers before EPB integrates the system for the customer.
The group also supplies spare parts and provides maintenance and repair services.
Its areas of strength include:
The group has also expanded into related products over the years.
It entered flexible packaging materials in 2014 and began manufacturing them internally in 2017. Cellulose casings used in sausage production were later added to the business.
Machinery, however, remains the core.
In FY2025, EPB Group Berhad recorded RM120.96 million in revenue.
Of that amount, RM97.70 million came from food-processing and packaging machinery solutions.
Cellulose casings contributed RM11.05 million, while flexible packaging materials brought in another RM12.21 million.
That means roughly four out of every five ringgit of group revenue still comes from its machinery business.
The scale of the business has changed considerably.
EPB recorded approximately RM61.69 million in revenue in FY2020.
By FY2024, that had grown to RM105.51 million.
A year later, revenue rose another 14.6% to RM120.96 million.
Profit after tax for FY2025 reached RM13.74 million, compared with RM9.79 million the previous year.
But one of the most interesting parts of EPB’s growth is not simply how much it sells.
It is where those sales are coming from.
Malaysia contributed RM33.52 million to EPB’s FY2025 revenue.
The Philippines contributed RM40.61 million.
Indonesia generated another RM31.76 million, while other overseas markets accounted for RM15.07 million.
Combined, markets outside Malaysia generated approximately 72% of EPB Group Berhad’s FY2025 revenue.
For a Penang-based industrial machinery company, that is a significant shift.
EPB is no longer simply supplying machinery to local food manufacturers.
It is exporting Malaysian engineering and factory automation into other Southeast Asian markets.
The Philippines has become particularly important.
EPB’s revenue from the country jumped from RM9.60 million in FY2024 to RM40.61 million in FY2025.
Indonesia is another major market.
By late 2025, the group was serving around 600 customers across Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and other markets.
That regional exposure gives EPB a much larger market than Malaysia alone.
Food manufacturing can still require a surprising amount of labour.
Depending on the factory, workers may be needed to weigh ingredients, move products between machines, fill containers, check portions, pack finished products or perform repetitive tasks along the line.
That works at a certain scale.
It becomes much harder when manufacturers need to produce significantly more.
Automation allows factories to increase output without increasing manpower at exactly the same rate.
It can also reduce repetitive handling and improve consistency.
EPB has identified difficulty hiring factory workers as one reason manufacturers are increasingly looking towards robotics and automation.
Hygiene requirements are another.
Food production has very different demands from making furniture or assembling electronics. Machines may come into direct contact with ingredients, liquids, powders or processed meat.
Production lines need to run consistently while also meeting food-safety and cleaning requirements.
Demand for convenient food is adding another layer.
EPB managing director Yeoh Chee Min has pointed to changes in consumer behaviour in Indonesia and the Philippines, where more households have two working adults.
As demand for processed, packaged and convenient food grows, manufacturers need more capacity.
More capacity often leads to more automation.
That creates an opportunity for companies such as EPB Group Berhad.
EPB does not operate without competition.
Chinese machinery manufacturers can produce an enormous range of industrial equipment at aggressive prices.
For a Malaysian company, competing only on the upfront cost of a machine would be difficult.
EPB has instead focused on areas including customisation, after-sales service, quality and the specific requirements involved in food manufacturing.
Yeoh has also highlighted halal requirements, food safety and hygiene standards as areas that can matter when serving food manufacturers.
The cheapest machine is not always the cheapest production system to operate.
Once machinery is installed inside a working factory, other costs begin to matter.
How often does it break down?
How quickly can somebody service it?
Does it work properly with the rest of the production line?
Can it handle the manufacturer’s actual product?
Can the machinery meet the required food-safety standards?
Downtime becomes expensive when an entire production line stops.
That gives local and regional support more value than the initial machine price might suggest.
EPB has also concentrated on specific food categories rather than trying to dominate every segment.
Coffee and tea, chilli sauce, frozen food and sausages are among the areas where the group has built deeper experience.
The next step is making those production lines increasingly automated.
EPB began integrating robotic technology into its machinery solutions in 2022.
Robotics has since become a larger part of its growth plans.
The appeal is straightforward.
A robot can perform the same movement repeatedly without fatigue. It can reduce certain manual handling processes and help manufacturers achieve more consistent production.
EPB has also been developing partnerships around the technology inside the machines themselves.
One collaboration involves Japanese motor manufacturer Nidec Corporation and the use of variable-frequency drive technology in EPB machinery.
EPB expects the technology to deliver energy savings of between 10% and 30%, depending on the machine, while also reducing motor wear and maintenance requirements.
Those savings matter more than they may first appear.
Factories can operate machinery for long hours every day.
The economics of automation are therefore not determined solely by the purchase price.
Electricity, labour, downtime, maintenance and machine lifespan all affect what the equipment really costs over time.
Improving those areas can make automation more attractive even before a manufacturer considers higher production output.
EPB is also expanding the amount of machinery it can produce.
Its two existing facilities have built-up areas of approximately 24,038 sq ft and 61,250 sq ft.
The group is developing another manufacturing facility at Penang Science Park North.
Once fully developed, the new facility is expected to provide around 90,000 sq ft of manufacturing space.
The first phase accounts for approximately 70,000 sq ft.
EPB’s latest guidance targets completion of the first phase in the second half of 2026.
The extra capacity should allow the company to fabricate more machinery and manage multiple projects as its regional customer base grows.
It is a considerable change from the business that began selling manual packaging machines in 1992.
The corporate structure that became EPB Group Berhad was established much later than the group’s 1992 operating roots.
EPB Group Sdn Bhd was incorporated in February 2022 and later converted into a public company.
On 23 August 2024, EPB Group Berhad made its debut on Bursa Malaysia’s ACE Market.
Its IPO was priced at 56 sen per share.
The overall exercise raised RM62.48 million, including approximately RM40.08 million raised by EPB through the issuance of new shares.
Part of those proceeds was allocated towards factory expansion.
Investor interest in the listing was strong.
The Malaysian public portion of the IPO was oversubscribed 61.08 times.
EPB subsequently proposed transferring its listing from the ACE Market to Bursa Malaysia’s Main Market.
As of August 2026, EPB remains listed on the ACE Market while the proposed transfer is being pursued.
EPB’s financial results do not rise neatly every quarter.
In Q1 FY2026, revenue came in at RM21.11 million, compared with RM27.25 million during the same quarter a year earlier.
Profit attributable to shareholders fell from RM2.63 million to approximately RM502,000.
That decline needs some context.
EPB’s machinery business works around projects.
Revenue recognition depends on factors such as project milestones, machinery completion, delivery schedules and customer readiness.
A large production line completed in one quarter rather than another can therefore move the numbers considerably.
The order book gives another view of what is happening behind the quarterly results.
At the end of January 2026, EPB had approximately RM81.53 million in outstanding orders.
By 30 April 2026, the order book had risen to around RM107.8 million.
Of that total, RM86.52 million came from food-processing and packaging machinery.
EPB expected approximately RM99.08 million of the total order book to be fulfilled and billed during FY2026, with another RM8.72 million extending into FY2027.
That is a sizeable pipeline of machinery still waiting to be completed and delivered.
There is something fitting about EPB’s relative anonymity.
Most consumers will never buy an EPB-branded product.
There are no EPB packets sitting on supermarket shelves.
Its logo is not the one consumers see when they pick up a bottle of sauce, a packet of coffee or frozen food.
The machinery sits further back in the supply chain.
It works inside factories producing goods that eventually leave carrying somebody else’s brand.
That is what makes EPB Group Berhad an interesting Malaysian manufacturing story.
Its operating roots began with Yeoh Chee Min selling manual packaging machines in 1992.
The business later moved into its own machinery fabrication.
Then came customised production lines, packaging materials, regional expansion and robotics.
More than three decades after those beginnings, annual revenue has crossed RM120 million.
Around 72% of FY2025 revenue came from outside Malaysia.
Its latest reported order book exceeded RM107 million.
Another 90,000 sq ft of manufacturing space is being developed in Penang.
And the company is now trying to automate even more of the food-production process.
The next time a packet of coffee, bottle of chilli sauce or frozen-food product rolls off a production line somewhere in Southeast Asia, the brand on the packaging will get the attention.
The machinery behind it may have a Malaysian story of its own.
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