Goat’s milk diversification paying off
CHAIYA Anafarang, 48, is the third generation of his family to earn a livelihood from producing goat’s milk and meat.
But over the past year his farming operation in Phuket has begun a transformation.
Since 2016, Chaiya’s family business has collaborated with the Phuket Pracha Rath Rak Samakkee Social Enterprise to make personal care products under a value-added approach that helped to push sales of this line under the brand Nanua Goat Farm to Bt65,000 last year.
“Previously, we sold only the goat’s milk and meat and that generate income of about Bt40,000 a month on average. When we were able to sell a kid, that would add to our average income by about Bt30,000 per kid,” Chaiya said in an interview with The Nation recently.
“But when the Phuket Pracha Rath Rak Samakee Social Enterprise visited our farm last year, it suggested that we use some of our goat’s milk to make personal care products such as soap, body lotion, hand lotion, shampoo and conditioner.
“It also helped us to design packaging for our products and to create our brand and find the market for us. We were able to sell 100 gift sets of products at Bt650 each last year. And this adds to the income that we get from our main business.”
With the initial success from the sale of the personal care products beginning last year, Chaiya managed to strike a deal with Central Festival Phuket to distribute his products at a Central Festival Phuket shop in the last quarter of this year. This is part of his efforts to double the sales growth for the personal care products this year, compared with the previous year.
Chaiya said that although the personal care products were yet to significantly boost the family’s income, he was confident that in time they would have strong potential for growth. “We have learned how to create added value from our raw materials, such as the goat’s milk and meat. This generates profits for us and the challenge is for us to develop other new products to serve the demands of our customers,” he said.
Chaiya said he had joined up with the Phuket Pracha Rath Rak Sammakee Social Enterprise in order to research and develop new products based on the goat’s milk and meat, and to develop packaging with a more modern look that is in tune with customers’ lifestyles.
“I cannot to do everything on my own as I only a farmer,” Chaiya said. “I do not have knowledge about the technology and innovations required to produce value-added products from our raw materials, the goat’s milk and meat.
“When the Phuket Pracha Rath Rak Samakee Social Enterprise linked up with us last year, that helped us to create more value-added products and also to help us with the packaging and to find the distribution channels for our products.
“This cooperation has helped me to improve my situation from being a farmer selling raw materials only to now become an entrepreneur with more business channels that will improve our income over the long term.”
