Milo, Kopiko, Mi Sedap: British woman brings 28kg of snacks from Malaysia to London

SINGAPORE – For many Singaporeans, packing light for a trip to Malaysia is the norm to save space for the shopping – and goodies – to bring home.

But for Briton Leila Purchase, her passion for South-east Asian snacks meant that checking in a whopping 28kg worth of snacks from her travels in Malaysia on her flight back home was worth the hassle.

A clip of her showcasing her haul from her apartment in London, uploaded to TikTok on Feb 24, has since gone viral on the platform – it has been viewed more than 420,000 times – and been reported on by some Malaysian online news portals.

In her video, Ms Purchase shows off a large black duffel bag and says: “I’ve been putting this off for weeks, but it’s now or never, because I’m literally going to eat everything and there’ll be nothing left to show.”

She then opens up the bag to reveal her stash – local goodies from Malaysia, from candy and cookies to instant noodles and even tom yum powder.

Some items in her list of purchases include local favourites such as Fruit Plus and Kopiko candy, Tao Kae Noi seaweed, Milo powder, Goldfish crackers, Mi Sedap instant noodles and an impressive 17 packets of Mak Nyonya tom yum paste.

This caught the attention of many netizens, who took to the comments section of her video to approve of her choices.

One user, with the handle Khaleef, joked: “It’s as though you want to open a convenience store over there, sis.”

A user named Iman said: “As a student from Malaysia studying in Manchester, what you got is the same as what I brought... Missing home.”

Another user, named Maru Chan, offered other more extreme suggestions: “You forgot belacan (shrimp paste), cencalok (fermented krill), tempoyak (fermented durian), petai, budu (anchovy sauce), sambal and durian.”