While most home cooks spend lots of time and effort preparing savoury dishes like rendang and lemang for Hari Raya, a lot less effort is invested in making kuih Raya.

Given hectic lifestyles these days, not everyone has the time to make different kinds of cookies, cakes and savoury snacks for Hari Raya. Thankfully, there is Blee (Barangan Luarbiasa Esklusif eUsahawan), a homegrown marketplace available on the MyBazar e-commerce platform. This Hari Raya, the site is serving up a panoply of kuih made by nearly 100 talented local merchants from all over Malaysia, through its Fiesta Kuih Raya campaign, which runs until June 17.

“We have around 20 different kuih raya varieties. These include sweet, savoury, and spicy snacks,” says Aaliyah Soraya, MyBazar Malaysia’s marketing director.

Blee (www.mybazar.com/blee) is backed by the Malaysian Digital Economy Council (MDEC) under the eUsahawan programme. Interested sellers have to register with eUsahawan to be eligible to get their products featured on the site.

That does give us some confidence that merchants completing the eUsahawan programmes are serious about wanting to sell online and have gone through courses on online selling.

“On MyBazar’s end, what we usually do before getting the merchant onboard is make it mandatory to get to know them by conducting one-on-one interviews and fully scrutinising their product to ensure that it is the highest quality,” says Aaliyah.

One of the best things about Blee is that it actively encourages the participation of rural communities, as one of its objectives is to bridge the urban consumer-rural producer gap. To facilitate this, the team regularly goes into rural communities to engage with locals and unearth unsung talents who could benefit from more exposure. As a result, 70% of the merchants on Blee are based in rural areas.

“We were very lucky to tie up with MDEC which has a whole calendar of nationwide eUsahawan events planned for non-urban outreach. The team talk to the merchants about how the Blee programme is beneficial for them and get them excited to participate. We have been lucky to travel to places like Jeli in Kelantan, Pekan in Pahang, Sepanggar in Sabah, and Sintok in Kedah,” says Aaliyah.

She says that getting the merchants to participate in the Fiesta Kuih Raya campaign was a stress-free process as most were enthusiastic about getting involved.

“We were quite lucky that the majority of merchants from non-urban areas sell mostly either food products or health and beauty products. So we had so many kuih raya-selling merchants eager to participate in the campaign.”

As a result, the kuih raya on the site offers plenty of variety.You’ll find biskut raya Sabah and kuih sepit from Sabah, kek lapis from Sarawak, kayu buruk and bahulu from Pahang, kuih bangkit cheese from Langkawi as well as assorted snacks, cakes and cookies like rempeyek, wajik durian, chocolate chip cookies and pineapple tarts from merchants in the Klang Valley.

Prices start from as low as RM2 and shipping is free nationwide! According to Aaliyah, the hot ticket items for Raya so far have been kuih lapis, rempeyek cheese and butter pandan cookies.

So if you’re angling after kuih Raya for your Hari Raya open house or just want to try out some authentic kuih, the veritable treasure trove of homemade offerings on Blee will satiate all your kuih needs.