Our History
In November 1992, Lian Huat Trading Company opened for business as a retail for Asian grocery and noodle manufacturing business in Stoddard Road, Mt. Roskill. The unit was separated into two sections: front-grocery and back-noodle manufacturing.
In the beginning, there were only two factory workers among six family members that helped in noodle manufacturing. The manufacturing process has two time slots, one in the early morning followed by late afternoon noodle manufacturing. Gradually the workers were increased to four factory workers. The delivery of the noodles was around greater Auckland area.
The grocery section was subsequently closed down few years later due to its inability to sustain profits as there were very low Asian population at the time.
The manufacturing of the noodles began with only three products initially, Fresh, Hokkien and rice noodles. These three products were learned experiences with numerous trials and errors, different colours of noodles were seen when we experienced with different type of flour. Later, Yang Chun noodles was added to the repertoire. The product reflected the immigration of New Zealand, as the earlier NZ migrants came from the South East Asian countries eats mostly fresh and rice noodles while the later influx of immigration came from China are used to Yang Chun Noodles. Later Lian Huat added on six variation of Yang Chun noodles into the collection of products as well as Udon and Wonton noodles.
For marketing in the restaurants and cafes in each suburbs, samples were dropped off and followed by phone call over the course of the week. Most of the main Asian supermarkets, such as Taiping, Dahua, Lim Chhour and Fresh and Save supermarkets are willing to take on our products.
In 2005, we moved to our own unit at 5A Enterprise Drive, Henderson. The unit was renovated to food grade factory with two production lines that covers the rice and pre-cooked noodles. The lesser line included the Hokkien and Udon Noodles.
Gradually, the noodle markets expanded further to Hamilton, Napier, Gisborne and Dargaville. During that period, Lian Huat has added on two drivers and six factory workers.
In 2012, the changes to the NZ Immigration Law led to an influx of Asian migrants to NZ. The exponentially explosion of Asian migrants led to the surge of cafés, restaurants, food courts and Asian supermarkets around Auckland, which resulted in an increase of noodle orders from Lian Huat. This increase in business led us to increase our product range to include dumpling and wonton pastry in 2013. Also, additional factory staff and driver were added to the team. There are three drivers that service the North-west area, central-East area and central-north area of Auckland.
During this period, the business expanded to include Hotels, Restaurant chains, European gourmet markets, and restaurants/retails shops in Whangarei, Rotorua, Taupo, Wellington and Christchurch.
Lian Huat has been in business for 25 years and and we will continue to grow our business as our products entered a new phase of markets.