This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Malaysia’s Richest 2026. See the full list here.

porting a pair of mud-stained jeans, Loi Tuan Ee enters one of the nine sheds on his dairy farm tucked in the small town of Mawai in the foothills of Malaysia's Gunung Muntahak mountain in Johor state. It’s a hot and humid February afternoon, but inside the ambience is cool, with large industrial fans dispersing streams of mist. Loi is on his monthly tour to inspect the much-valued inhabitants of the shed—a herd of black-and-white and tan cows that he frequently refers to as the “ladies.” As diesel generators chug in the background, Loi points to where he plans to install solar panels, disclosing that a biogas plant to convert cow manure into renewable energy is also in the works.

With this hands-on approach, Loi, 62, over two decades has built his Bursa Malaysia-listed company, Farm Fresh, into the country’s biggest home-grown dairy operation in a market dominated by the local units of multinational giants. With its “grass-to-glass” model, the Malaysian company has overtaken Switzerland’s Nestlé to become the third-largest supplier of milk after FrieslandCampina from the Netherlands and New Zealand’s Fonterra Co-operative Group. Loi has added a range of items to the product lineup, including powdered milk, yogurt, and more recently, ice cream and plant-based beverages.

Farm Fresh’s cofounder and group CEO is now poised to boost the company’s regional production base with an almost $190 million outlay over the next few years to build new dairy farms and processing plants across Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines. “My vision is for Farm Fresh to be a multicategory champion both in Malaysia and regionally,” Loi declares.

His ambition is underpinned by increasing dairy consumption in the company’s home market and beyond. New Delhi-based research and consulting firm Imarc Group estimates Malaysia’s dairy market will expand by nearly a third to $3.4 billion by 2030, when annual sales of dairy products across Southeast Asia are projected to exceed $45 billion, up from $34 billion in 2025.

Farm Fresh is already riding this wave, reporting a 30% jump in net profit to 102 million ringgit ($30 million) on 14% revenue growth to 841 million ringgit in the nine months to Dec. 31. The buoyancy was partly due to an uptick in overseas sales, notably in the Philippines and Cambodia. Loi is confident the momentum will continue though the Iran war caused a shortage of plastic milk bottles, which he says has been addressed by switching to cartons.

With a herd of more than 13,000 cows across five dairy farms in Malaysia, including 2,000 cows in Mawai, Farm Fresh produces more than 67 million liters of milk annually. Additionally, 17 million liters of milk are exported to Southeast Asian markets from Farm Fresh’s 1,100-hectare farm with its herd of 3,000 cows in Greater Shepparton, about 180km north of Melbourne.

Since its market debut on Bursa Malaysia in 2022, Farm Fresh has sustained its growth momentum.

Jade Tam, an analyst at Maybank in Kuala Lumpur, says Farm Fresh has gained traction with its emphasis on having fresh milk in its products versus the milk solids or reconstituted milk used by rival brands such as FrieslandCampina’s Dutch Lady and Nestlé. “It was a long process to educate consumers that Farm Fresh products were the healthier options but in time, they have managed to gain market share at the expense of the incumbent........

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