Housewife makes money selling lemang periuk kera

KANGAR: When she quit her job as a civil servant in 2012 to focus fully on her family, Nazatul Azrin Othman never thought that years down the road she would manage to earn RM1,000 a day by selling lemang periuk kera (pitcher plant lemang).

Nazatul Azrin, 41, said despite running a small business from home for the past six years, she was having her hands full to meet the orders since the beginning of Ramadan.

"I sell my lemang for RM30 per kilogram (kg) and managed to complete 30 to 40 kg, equivalent to 600 to 640 pieces a day.

"In the first two weeks of Ramadan, I managed to sell almost a tonne of lemang periuk kera which was sold by cash on delivery (COD)," she told Bernama when met at her residence in Kampung Tok Paduka recently.

Nazatul Azrin said her lemang was a new attraction in the state because it was difficult to obtain compared to ketupat palas and lemang buluh.

The mother of one said what worried her most was the dwindling number of pitcher plants and the supply from the Orang Asli in Pahang was difficult when the courier service was disrupted due to traffic congestion nearing the Aidilfitri, but she tried to meet customers' orders as she did not want to disappoint them who are unable to 'balik kampung' due to the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO).

She said before the first MCO was imposed last year, she supplied about a tonne of pitcher plant lemang to several nearby areas in the north including Langkawi, Alor Setar, Sungai Petani, and Butterworth, Penang, as part of her efforts to help her husband generate extra income for the family.

Nazatul Azrin who was previously attached to the Skills Development Fund Corporation (PTPK) in Kuala Lumpur said the idea to work on pitcher plant lemang came about when she visited her relatives in Pahang in 2014.

She said she took about 24 hours just to clean the plant thoroughly before use and this did not include the time to cook glutinous rice into savoury lemang, which took about 45 minutes.

"The plants must be cleaned thoroughly so that is safe for consumption," she said.

-- BERNAMA