Entrepreneur reaping the fruits of his endeavour
SITTINUT Chinda-In, 49, changed tack 10 years ago from running the family's beer dealership to striking out on his own, and eventually establishing his own fresh-fruit-juice business, named Punlaek, at Sam Chuk market in Suphan Buri.
The business now generates Bt80,000 a month, thanks largely to the number of tourists visiting the traditional market.
“My family had been an exclusive dealer of Singha beer since 1945, but the business faced high competition when a new brand hit the market, so I decided to withdraw from the market and do business by myself,” Sittinut said during an interview with The Nation.
He initially ran a bakery business at his home in the province’s Muang district, but then opened up a fresh-fruit-juice operation in front of the bakery.
With the bakery market also highly competitive, and his inventory proving to be too high, he decided after a number of years to shut that part of the business down and focus instead on fresh fruit juice. He opened two Punlaek branches – one in Muang district and the other in Sam Chuk district.
The branch at Sam Chuk’s century-old market was an immediate success, selling 100 glasses of fresh juice at Bt20 a time on its very first day – and about 400 glasses on the second day.
The two branches between them now generate an average of Bt10,000 a day, but open only on Saturdays and Sundays and on long holiday weekends, as that is when the market has more tourists.
“We are open an average of eight days a month, in essence to serve tourists,” Sittinut said.
Given the success of the business and the positive feedback it received, he then successfully applied for his Punlaek brand to be copyrighted via the Intellectual Property Department, because the juices are made from his own special formula.
Having been granted such status will be a crucial factor in the next phase of his business, which is to launch a franchise network.
“We plan to open a franchise for the use of our brand nationwide, but we first have to get a bank loan for our business expansion. We previously got a loan of Bt150,000 two years ago for the purchase of juice blenders, which was guaranteed by Thai Credit Guarantee Corp.
“We have to pay back the existing loan before expanding our investment via franchising. We will not be able to support our franchisees to promote the brand unless we have more capital to do so,” he explained.
He added that the main problem for small enterprises like his own was access to capital for expanding the business.
However, Sittinut remains upbeat about the business’ prospects, as his products differ from other fresh fruit juices available in the market.
