Father and son work together to make ANKO famous for ethnic food machinery
Robert OuYoung, Chairman of ANKO Food Machine Co., studied horticulture at college. With the romantic personality, OuYoung has a green thumb. Like an eagle, he is also brave enough to take risks. In an effort to win international orders, the company’s chairman has always traveled around the world with his suitcase.
After the development of nearly four decades, ANKO has become a leading brand in the Taiwan’s food machine industry. Its food processing equipment has been also exported to 108 countries around the globe.
In fact, OuYoung started his own business from the manufacturing of seed sprouters. ANKO Food Machine Co. was founded in 1978 when the raw food diet became popular in Taiwan. Spotting a gap in this promising market, OuYoung led his team to successfully launch automatic seed sprouters for families and restaurants around the country.
In 1985, one customer asked ANKO to design an automatic spring roll machine. After evaluating the potential business opportunities, OuYoung decided to enter the market of Chinese dim sum machines.
Under his firm leadership, ANKO engineers has put a lot of time and efforts into the research and development of food processing equipment for Chinese dim sum, including dumplings, shumai, spring roll, wonton, pot sticker, xiaolongbao (steamed buns), prawn dumplings, scallion crepe, rice balls, baozi (steamed buns), and mantou (plain, unfilled buns).
It is estimated that Taiwanese people have eaten more than 20 million frozen dumplings a day. More than 80 percent of the frozen dumplings, with the brand names of Uni-President Enterprises Co., I-Mei Foods Co., Long-Feng Foods Co., and Hai Pa Wang Foods Co., are made by ANKO dumpling machines.
In addition, ANKO dumpling machines can make a wide variety of foods all over the world. These foods range from Chinese-style shumai and spring roll to Japanese-style sushi and wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets that are often served with a cup of green tea). Indian naan bread and curry dumplings with the Nanyang-flavor, American-style ravioli, and even coxinha (a popular food in Brazil consisting of shredded chicken meat) in Central and South America can be also made by ANKO dumpling machines.
In 1992, OuYoung set his goal to make ANKO become the world’s largest company of ethnic food machinery. Meanwhile, ANKO aims to provide a full range of ethnic food machines and a set of total solutions for its clients in China, India, Europe, the U.S., and other countries.
To expand his business, OuYoung began to try online marketing on his son’s recommendation. He set up the ANKO official website, used Google keyword research tool, and joined the B2B platforms such as Taiwantrade with the aim of increasing ANKO brand exposure and attracting potential buyers’ attention.
In this way, ANKO, unlike other Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises, has abandoned the traditional thinking of door-to-door marketing, but turns into the use of e-commerce marketing to sell its food machinery all over the world.
In a bid to attract a larger customer base, ANKO official website provides up to tens of thousands of pages with detailed information. It also includes 40 languages as well as complete instructions and videos of more than 200 food processing machines.
In 2012, China’s Alibaba B2B website held a contest of the “Top 10 E-Commerce Players in the World.” ANKO was the only Taiwanese company to win this award. Such achievements prove that ANKO chairman OuYoung made good use of Internet marketing to instantly provide its clients around the globe with the world’s latest food trends and information. The influence of word-of-mouth recommendation has also laid the foundations for ANKO reputation in the global food processing machinery market.
Taiwantrade ePortal site
