Sweet taste of success for budding ice cream queen
MULLIKA Reinkang left her life as a teacher to be entrepreneur when she saw an opportunity that has since boosted her income from Bt20,000 a month two years ago to Bt200,000 a month now.
“I worked as a teacher for 13 years but it did not generate enough income to meet my family’s expansion. As a result, I tried to create my own business to generate more income for my family,” said Mullika, 38.
“The mother of one of my students, who owned a business that produced home-made ice cream, suggested I learn how to make ice cream. This inspired me to learn and start to produce ice cream for sale to supplement my income.”
Mullika, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University in Bangkok, said that after selling ice cream to her friends and a bakery and a restaurant for three months, she received positive feedback and the business generated sales of Bt40,000 a month.
“This is the reason that I decided to resign from my routine job, teaching, which had a salary of Bt20,000 month,” she said.
Mullika then expanded her production capacity by investing Bt100,000 to purchase an ice-cream-making machine and expanded her list of clients by offering her products to more restaurants and appointing wholesalers to distribute her products to retailers.
Now with sales of Bt200,000 a month, Mullika distributes her products in Samut Sakhon province under the brand Khru Toi (Teacher Toi). “Toi” is her nickname.
Mullika plans to invest Bt150,000 next year to double her production capacity to distribute her products to Lampang province.
“We plan to set up a plant in Lampang rather than distribute our products [there] from Samut Sakhon province. This will reduce our logistics costs and we will continue to expand our market, and that will double our sales value from Bt200,000 to Bt400,000 a month next year,” she said.
She said the key to her success was her coconut ice-cream flavour.
