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Gudang Garam (lit. '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 Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette factory Cap 93. Cap 93 was one of the most famous Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette 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 Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette 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 Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette to secure good fortune. Ing Hwie thought this was a good idea and asked Sarman to design the logo.
Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette grow rapidly and by the end of 1958 it had five hundred employees producing over fifty million Gudang Garam annualy.
By 1966, after only eight years in production, Gudang Garam had grown to be the largest Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette 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 Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette 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 Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette.
Despite being a relative latecomer to the game of kretek, Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette was now clearly the largest producer of Gudang Garam Clove Cigarette in Indonesia and one of the top ten largest cigarette manufacturers in the world.
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