KUALA LUMPUR, 29 October 2025 – Malaysian dairy firm Farm Fresh Berhad is making its first major foray overseas, launching a collaboration with Cambodia’s Alpha Group Cambodia to develop a large-scale dairy farm and milk-processing facility. The move marks a strategic push into the kingdom’s under-penetrated fresh-milk market and underscores Farm Fresh’s ambition to export its “grass-to-glass” model across Southeast Asia.
Under the Memorandum of Understanding signed on 26 October, Farm Fresh and Alpha Group will work together to establish modern dairy-farming operations and a manufacturing facility in Cambodia, a country where domestic milk production covers only a small fraction of local demand.
The Cambodian Government, represented by Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol, welcomed the investment as an important step towards reducing reliance on milk imports, developing the local dairy supply-chain and creating new jobs for farmers.
For Farm Fresh, the expansion is a strategic pivot: leveraging its expertise in dairy production, brand strength and supply-chain integration to capture growth beyond Malaysia, while aligning with the rising demand for fresh-milk products in East- and Southeast-Asia markets. The arrangement enables the company to tap into Cambodia’s agricultural potential and favourable investment environment, while also positioning itself ahead of regional peers.
From a regional investor perspective, several implications emerge:
- The deal indicates that ASEAN’s dairy-and-agro-industry is entering a new phase of consolidation and cross-border investment, as countries with limited domestic supply partner with more advanced producers.
- For Malaysian agribusinesses, it suggests a blueprint for scaling regionally by exporting not just product, but systems, farming models and branded platforms.
- For Cambodia, the partnership may lead to local skills transfer, farm-upgrade investment and improved food-security resilience, themes favourable for investors tracking agriculture and rural-economy value chains.
Despite the promise, execution challenges remain. Key questions include how rapidly the farm and processing infrastructure can scale, whether domestic consumption in Cambodia will pick up accordingly, and how any tariff, logistical or distribution bottlenecks will be addressed. Monitoring will also be required on how Farm Fresh balances capital commitments in Cambodia with its domestic operations and whether it uses the expansion as a springboard into other regional markets.
