Asiatic building new plant to increase drinks output

Nuttapon Visuthikraisee, managing director of Asiatic Agro Industry, a top-three Thai producer and exporter of coconut products, said the company is concentrating on the agricultural processed food business with a focus on processed coconut products.
“The success of Cocomax, which we have seen through good feedback from the health and wellness group of customers, has urged us to increase our production power. This has led to our recent investment of over Bt800 million to construct a new plant on a 24,000-square-metres (15 rai) plot in Amphawa, Samut Songkhram province,” Nuttapon said.
The plant will be equipped with cold aseptic bottle-filling technology to maintain the freshness of all coconut fruit.
The company plans to deploy its knowledge and technologies in the complete production of processed coconut food in 10 years’ time.
It is now actively marketing for both domestic and international markets, but it is also getting ready to kick off new products next year. The company is confident of meeting its target of Bt2.1 billion in sales revenue this year, or 15 per cent growth compared with last year.
The company’s vision is to be recognised as a leading organisation in Thailand that lays its greater investment compounds through human resources and know-how, both in resources expertise and advanced technologies. These attributes will lead to more competitive advantages in the world’s food business, Nuttapon said.
As consumer satisfaction remains the main reason for the creation of values in all the company’s works, it has brought success in market expansion of the 100-per-cent coconut water product, Cocomax, to 15 countries in Europe and Asia.
The company even sees greater demand in Thailand itself. Thus, this year’s target is to completely penetrate the market while still focusing on investments and new product development in order to position itself as a producer and processor of a complete coconut product line in 10 years through the help of advanced production technologies.
The new plant has put in place a complete line of production processes as well as the company’s advanced method of maintaining coconut fields to ensure the best quality and quantity of the coconuts used. That also includes the coconut processing method in the bottling phase, which takes advantage of the advanced cold aseptic bottle-filling technology to ensure the freshness of all coconut fruit.
The coconut beverage will then be checked to make sure it is in line with international standards before being distributed to consumers. With this production process and advanced production line, the company is able to produce 72 million bottles a year. This will allow it to serve both domestic and international markets in at least three years, especially in Thailand, where demand for fresh juice has increased.
Nuttapon said Asiatic will incorporate more values into the production of coconut products in the short term to fully execute and benefit from its coconut resources. It will expand its product lines to cover all possible processed coconut products in the near future. For instance, in the second and third quarters of 2016, the company plans to introduce 2-3 beverage product lines to offer more variety to this beverage group to meet the current and future market demands.
The company also serves the export market with many processed coconut products. Apart from the Cocomax brand, it makes undiluted coconut milk under the Ampawa brand, and the first ready-to-drink coconut milk in Thailand under the Milky Coco brand, which contains coconut water and meat.
The company also produces processed coconut materials to supply to other brands as well. Its products are distributed to 74 countries in five continents.
Cocomax is distributed to 15 countries in Asia and Europe, with Japan and Singapore being the main markets with a share of 25 per cent of all its coconut water exports, followed by Hong Kong, Australia, Denmark and Finland.
Currently, the company is preparing to expand to new markets, including France, Poland, South Korea and Malaysia. This year, the company has targeted sales revenue of Bt2.1 billion, or a 15 per cent growth from last year. Of that, 90 per cent will be from exports and 10 per cent from domestic sales. It is also expecting an increase of 20 per cent in domestic sales next year after current aggressive marketing activities.