For the past month, an online campaign has been raging against Gardenia bread, accusing it of being a crony company.

robert kuok The campaign calls on consumers to support rival bread company Massimo which recently entered the market.

One email read: "Let's support the new Massimo bread by Robert Kuok ( right )  and boycott Gardenia bread owned by Umno crony, Syed Mokhtar Albukhary's Tradewind group."

Alarmed by the campaign which has taken a racial undertone, Gardenia Bakeries (KL) Sdn Bhd late last month debunked the claim.

"Gardenia takes pride in being everything that a good Malaysian company should be. We employ highly professional and ethical people regardless of race or religion."

In its statement, the company attached several pictures of its office with the words "There's just once race, the human race" framed on its walls.

It added that Bernas, owned by Syed Mokthar has a 30 percent stake in Gardenia since 2001.

Most messages in Chinese

It is unclear where the campaign originated but the campaign appeared to target Chinese consumers with most messages being in Chinese.

selangor dap congress 2011 teresa kok Earlier this month, the company's managers also sought the aid of Seputeh MP Terasa Kok ( left ).

"There are various permutations of these messages but in a nutshell, they allege that Gardenia is linked to BN, Umno and Bernas which alleged to be anti-Chinese, and thus Chinese Malaysians are urged to boycott Gardenia and purchase another brand of bread instead.

"I too received such a text message on that day. The text message was written in Chinese. I find this SMS to be extremely racist and not acceptable," she said in a blog posting.

Gardenia's management, she added, informed her that despite the 30 percent Bernas stake, Bernas did not instruct it not to buy flour from Kuok's company.

"Gardenia only buys flour from company that offers reasonable rates. It never takes instruction from Bernas," she said.

Kok has condemned the racial campaign and urged the public to exercise caution when forwarding similar messages.