1988 – 1993: The Beginning

Before MacCoffee was created, founder Tan Wang Cheow was exporting personal computers and peripherals to Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the late 1980s. In some of these countries where winter temperature dips below thirty degrees, aside from drinking Vodka and buying hot coffee beverages from street side stalls to keep warm, there wasn't any convenient way of getting a cup of hot coffee.

So during one such trip to Kazakhstan, Wang Cheow brought along a few sachets of instant three-in-one coffee. On an enterprising bent, he interests his business contacts with the mix and sold them on importing it. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in Russia in 1991, Eastern Europe began to open up and welcomed foreign investments and its political situation was positive. Besides, Eastern Europe was a market very much untapped and presented a lot of good opportunities.