Calpis opens soya drink factory, finally surfaces from great flood
Three years after severe flooding halted its operations in Thailand, Japanese beverage maker Calpis has opened a factory in a flood-free part of the same province, Ayutthaya.
With local partner Osotspa, it will produce soft drinks made from fermented milk and marketed under the Calpis Lacto brand, Nikkei reported last week.
Osotspa is a leading consumer product maker with household brands like energy drink M-150. It already has JVs with Japanese producers Kagome and House Foods.
“Thailand is an important growing market,” Calpis president Fujio Yamada
said at the plant’s opening ceremony on Thursday.
There was never any question of Calpis leaving, and it hopes to leverage Osotspa’s distribution network to improve brand recognition in Thailand, he said.
As with many other Japanese manufacturers, Thailand’s record-breaking floods in 2011 severely damaged Calpis’ old production facilities.
It was compelled to close down and sales in Thailand were suspended entirely.
In line with the global expansion strategy of parent company Asahi Group Holdings, the Japanese brewer that acquired Calpis in 2012 from food giant Ajinomoto, Calpis formed the JV with Osotspa in March of last year to re-enter the Thai market.
The new plant will produce Calpis Lacto Freshy, which has been developed specifically for Thailand. Distribution will be mainly through mom and pop stores, a traditional trade channel in which Osotspa has a large and well established network.
Freshy will be Calpis’ core product in Thailand with a sales target next year of 6 billion bottles worth Bt455 million.
