9 October 2008 - With an annual average growth rate of 7.7%, Thailand has become the world's 7th largest food export market. The nation's food and beverage exports in 2007 amounted to USD 19.2 billion.
According to data presented by Paiboon Polsuwanna vice-chairman of the Food Processing Club under the Federation of Thai Industries -- at last month's Food Ingredients Asia 2008 (held in Bangkok on 24-26 September) -- beverage exports, which accounted for 3.1% of total Thai food exports in 2007, increased very significantly: 111.4% in volume and 33.9% in value during H1 2008.
Polsuwanna argues that the growing popularity of Thai drinks abroad can be partly explained by various food safety requirements affecting Thai food trade.
Stricter food safety standards from its main destination markets, such as Europe, the US, Japan and ASEAN countries have resulted in Thailand putting emphasis on food labelling requirements, stricter biological contaminant standards, continuous revisions of chemical MRL and zero tolerance norms, as well as the ongoing monitoring of avian flu.
Polsuwanna commented: “To enable us to cope with the increasing and changing market requirements, we also need a fast and creditable inspection and product certification service”.
Polsuwanna added that due to growing food safety issues, retailers tend to rely more on setting or using private standards as their basis for accepting products from their suppliers.
“With the increasing requirements imposed by the buyers on their suppliers, especially by the hyper end markets, we need not only work to meet international standards but also private standards to maintain our businesses”, said the Vice-Chairman.
To increase profitability, meat producers are opting for smaller packages to lessen their storage expenses. Polsuwanna points out that packaging needs tend to be functional to ensure safety as well as modern, convenient, appealing and environmental-friendly food.