Director General of MPB Vincent Sawat
PUTRAJAYA: In the pepper industry, every passing hour is a risk - a late certificate can cause the transporting vessel to miss its schedule, trade contracts to be cancelled and smallholders’ income to be lost.
However, today the landscape of this high-value commodity has changed significantly through the “quiet” transformation of the Malaysian Pepper Board (MPB), namely the Project to Accelerate the Grading and Pepper Grade Certificate Process which was fully implemented by the Ministry of Plantations and Commodities this year (2025).
As a result, pepper traders have been able to save around RM2 million in compliance costs a year as the period for obtaining grading for the purpose of exporting the commodity has been shortened from two days to one working day.
“This not only speeds up the process but also increases the country’s competitiveness,” said MPB Director-General Vincent Sawat in an interview with BERNAMA here recently.
The MPB, headquartered in Kuching, Sarawak, is responsible for regulating the development of the country’s pepper industry.
SHORTENED PROCESS, INCREASED ECONOMIC IMPACT
The shortening of the grading process is expected to further increase the country's pepper exports, which recorded a strong growth of 24 percent to RM186.67 million in 2024 compared to RM149.97 million the previous year, a performance that places pepper among the commodities with the most consistent growth.
As of 2024, the pepper cultivation area in Malaysia is 8,289 hectares with Sarawak remaining the main producer covering 8,144 hectares, which is 98 percent of the country's total pepper cultivation area.
On the world map, Malaysia is ranked fifth largest producer after Vietnam, Brazil, India and Indonesia, while the largest importers are Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, China and South Korea.
Commenting on the transformation, Vincent said that previously, pepper traders had to go to the MPB office for a grading application by filling out a manual form, waiting for laboratory results, then returning for payment and collection of pepper grade certificates, which took between one and two days.
The bureaucratic red tape costs additional costs and traders face the risk of stocks being stuck in warehouses.
“Now everything is online. When the laboratory analysis is complete, the certificate is uploaded directly to the applicant’s account. They can then proceed with logistics, book containers and negotiate financing with banks,” he said.
On average, MPB receives 700 grading applications involving a total of 7,000 metric tonnes of pepper per year. As the backbone of Malaysia’s pepper export trade, any delay at any stage of grading will have a domino effect on the value chain.
“For small traders, the difference is real, including less time wasted, less administrative costs and more time focused on the market,” said Vincent.
REAL-TIME CODE: MALAYSIAN PEPPER INTEGRITY SHIELD
The transformation of bureaucratic red tape has also seen MPB move to digitalisation in the entire certification process, including using real-time QR codes that cannot be replicated, and certificates can be verified directly by importers and customs via a link to the MPB database.
“If someone tries to modify the certificate, the QR code will continue to distinguish it... this system proves that the certificate was truly issued based on MPB laboratory analysis,” he said.
According to him, the move not only strengthens the confidence of foreign buyers, but also places Malaysia among the countries that use advanced security technology in commodity certification.
“Now, the profile of global buyers has changed significantly. If two or three decades ago the international market was more inclined to look for low-cost suppliers to meet demand in large quantities, the focus has now shifted to aspects of food safety, consistency of standards, traceability of the supply chain and the reputation of the producing country,” he stressed.
OPENING THE WAY TO A BIGGER TRANSFORMATION
Explaining further, he said the transformation is a path-opener to a bigger change process based on the National Agrocommodity Policy 2030.
To that end, MPB is now focusing on three main pillars of the industry, namely standards, value-added certification and industry innovation.
“We want to create uniform pepper standards in line with Codex Alimentarius so that product quality is consistent from the farm to export.
“At the same time, MPB wants to make certification not just a requirement, but a competitive advantage through digitalization, international recognition and global food safety integration.”
MPB also intends to mobilize the use of automation, laboratory technology and processing innovations so that Malaysia can produce high-value downstream products such as extracts, oleoresins (a mixture of essential oils with resins) and nutraceutical applications (herbal products) and pharmaceuticals.
“If we want to remain in the premium, we cannot just sell raw materials. We need to move up the value chain,” he said.
IMPACT DOWN TO SMALLHOLDERS
Although this project is happening at the agency level, the impact goes down to the lowest level, namely smallholders.
With 99 percent of Malaysian pepper operators being smallholders, especially in Sarawak, price stability and smooth exports have a direct impact on their income.
“When exports move smoothly, traders can manage payments faster, stocks are not stagnant, and farmers receive more stable returns,” he said.
What is happening at MPB may seem like an improvement in internal systems and processes, but for a high-value small industry like pepper, the reform is the difference between smooth or delayed exports, between traders who make a profit or lose, and between smallholders who are stable or depressed.
“When compliance costs come down, the process becomes faster and our certificates are trusted worldwide, the entire ecosystem, including smallholders, will benefit.
“This reform proves something important - the biggest changes sometimes come from small agencies that work quietly but the results are felt at the global level,” he said.
The transformation carried out by MPB is also in line with the production target under the 13th Malaysia Plan, which is 60,000 metric tonnes by the end of the plan, compared to 32,000 metric tonnes now.
