Gudang
Garam Indonesia Kretek 1958
Gudang Garam (salt warehouse) was founded on 26 June 1958 and
it is salutary to reflect that one of most successful tobacco
companies in Indonesia today should have been started less than
fifty years ago and by a man of such humble origins as Tjoa
Ing Hwie.
In his late twenties, Ing Hwie got his big
break when his uncle offered him a job working with tobacco
and sauce at his kretek factory Cap 93. Cap 93 was one of the
most famous kretek brands in East Java. Hard work and diligence
was soon rewarded by promotion to Head of Tobacco and Sauce
and eventually led to Ing Hwie becoming a company director.
Ing Hwie left Cap 93 in 1956 taking fifty
employees with him. He immediately started buying land and raw
materials in Kediri and soon after began producing his own klobot
kretek which he marketed under the brand name Inghwie. Two years
later Ing Hwie re-named and registered his company as Pabrik
Rokok Tjap Gudang Garam and a legend was born.
The story behind the name 'Gudang Garam'
deserves a special mention. One night, Ing Hwie had a dream
in which the old salt warehouse which stood across the way from
Cap 93 featured prominently. Subsequently, Sarman, one of the
original fifty employees who had followed Ing Hwie when he left
Cap 93, advice Ing Hwie to put a picture of the warehouse on
every packet of his kretek to secure good fortune. Ing Hwie
thought this was a good idea and asked Sarman to design the
logo.
Gudang Garam grow rapidly and by the end
of 1958 it had five hundred employees producing over fifty million
kretek annualy.
By 1966, after only eight years in production, Gudang Garam
had grown to be the largest kretek factory in Indonesia with
an annual production of 472 million sticks.
By 1969, Gudang Garam was producing 864 million sticks a year
and was indisputably the largest kretek producer in Indonesia.
In 1979 Ing Hwie completely renovated Gudang Garam's production
system, ordered thrity rolling machines and developed a new
formula for his machine-made kretek.
Despite being a relative latecomer to the
game of kretek, Gudang Garam was now clearly the largest producer
of kretek in Indonesia and one of the top ten largest cigarette
manufacturers in the world.
(Contents partially are taken from "Kretek
Book" by Mark Hanusz)
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