Treedom seeks to become world's biggest supplier of fragrant oil oud

Founded in 2005, Treedom is a manufacturer and supplier of aromatic oud oil, an essential oil extracted by distillation of agarwood, reputed to be the most expensive wood in the world.
Oud has been popular in the Middle East for centuries for its scent.
There are many names for the resinous, fragrant heartwood produced primarily by trees of the genus Aquilaria. Most commonly, the resin is known as agarwood, aloeswood, eaglewood, gaharu, agalocha or oudh (in Arabic).
Treedom operates a factory in Trat province, which is close to the plantations that supply it with agarwood. The factory is licensed for 119 stills that produce 22 kilograms of oud oil a month. Under the expansion plan, the company will gradually increase the number of stills at the Thai plant to 360 for a monthly capacity of 80 kilogrammes by 2019.
“This production capacity makes the Treedom factory the largest in Southeast Asia, and all oud oil produced at the plant will be for export. All foreign earnings will come into Thailand to feed its growth plans, both in assets and infrastructure,” said Steve Griffin, chief executive of Treedom (Thailand).
He said Thailand had played an important role for Treedom Group’s oud-oil business as well as the cultivation of agarwood. The country’s total export of oud oil reached 7,537 kilograms in 2013, up 532 per cent from the 1,193kg shipped in 2011.
“Thailand is one of only 11 countries capable of producing the oud-oil raw material supply, which are agarwood plantations. Thailand-sourced oud oil is on a steep overseas demand trajectory. All the monies will be re-invested in the asset infrastructure of the company. The firm has no dividend pay-out plans until it reaches maximum capacity,” Griffin said. “We are in negotiation with the Malaysian government to expand operations into the country taking advantage of accords under the implementation of the Asean Economic Community scheme, which will be effective by the end of this year. Thailand’s and Malaysia’s oud oil will be blended in an attempt to further penetrate global markets. Thailand, however, will be the headquarters of the new expanded operation as well as the R&D centre |for oud-oil blending and development and distribution of retail products.”
He said that under the cooperation, the Malaysian product would be brought into the Thai factory for blending and then export. All of Treedom’s retail products will be developed, manufactured and distributed from Thailand.