Cracking progress from a health snack entrepreneur
FIRST LEARNING about the business from her mother when she was a young student, Manassnan Janmanee's dream of having her own company eventually came true and she is now successfully selling healthy Thai rice crackers to leading domestic retailers - and h
Young entrepreneur Manassnan, 34, founded her company – Impact Intertrade – about three years ago after an English friend asked if she would like to help him in the business of selling snack items and dried fruits from Thailand.
“As an office worker, I always wanted to get out of salaried employment and become a business owner. I was looking for a good opportunity, and then one of my friends from the UK contacted me about helping him import snacks and dried fruit from Thailand,” she explained.
The friend introduced her to a distributor from the UK, and she quickly went about learning about the Thai food industry, including Otop (One Tambon One Product) items. She saw that Thai food had great potential on the world market and decided to pursue the business opportunity that had come her way.
Manassnan chose rice crackers for her business, because they are one of her favourite snacks, and Thai rice is famous all over the world.
Rice snacks are favoured by foreigners, and also go well with any kind of drink, either hot or cold.
“I then started Impact Intertrade and made my main sales point [the fact that the crackers] are a healthy snack, yet delicious. The reason is that I think a long-term business should sell a good product that doesn’t harm the consumer. A long product life cycle means your business life cycle is longer with a good reputation, too.
“Then I searched for a manufacturer that could make the products, and to the taste that I like, while meeting the GMP [good manufacturing practice] standard so that my products are safe for consumers and good for exports. Finally, I met the owner of SP Enterprise International, and our two companies then developed the products together and got our first order from the UK,” she recalled.
Unfortunately, with her lack of experience in exporting, the cost exceeded her budget – and the packaging and cartons failed to protect the product well enough in transit.
When the shipment reached the UK, many of the packages had been smashed after being tossed about during transportation.
Her UK distributor refused to pay for the damaged goods, which was understandable, she said.
“I lost both the customer and money, and so my first order and investment turned out to be a disaster. I realised that I wasn’t ready for exporting, experience-wise or money-wise, but since I’d already invested in all the packaging, I couldn’t stop or give up [the business]. I’ve been distributing the rice crackers solely domestically from that point onwards,” she added.
With great support from her partner, Impact Intertrade is now an official marketing and distributor of SP Enterprise, which distributes under the brands Dr Corner, Siam Cottage and Hand Made Rice Crackers to many leading supermarkets and five-star hotels in Bangkok.
SP Enterprise also manufactures for other brands under OEM (original-equipment manufacturer) contracts. These include the Asian Artisan brand, Gourmet Thai and S Khonkaen.
Impact Intertrade currently offers two kinds of rice crackers. Kao Tan is a thick cracker made from whole-grain sticky rice, while Kao Thaang is a thin cracker made from whole-grain jasmine rice.
Manassnan uses the term ‘Hand Made’ in one of the company’s brands because each piece of rice cracker is made wholly by hand, with no machine involvement in the process. Her factory literally crafts the crackers piece by piece.
The company now generates sales of between Bt400,000 and Bt500,000 a month, a level that could double during festive seasons because of higher demand for snacks at those times.
Manassnan also foresees a better future once the upcoming Asean Economic Community comes into force, as she sees the single regional market facilitating export and import activities throughout Asean.
At the moment, her plan is to promote her range through supermarkets and exhibitions like “Thaifex”. If any foreign businesses are interested in importing her products, she is willing to discuss the matter with them.
The company targets health-conscious consumers and the high-end service industry, as these two groups are more interested in the quality of a product than the price.
For retail, her company sells to high-end supermarkets like Golden Place and Home Fresh Mart, health shops, coffee shops and hotels.
“For OEM customers, we [via SP Enterprise] manufacture for three brands, which are selling to four- and five-star chain hotels like Dusit, Erawan, Marriott and Sofitel,” the young entrepreneur added.
