THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Food vendors brace for packaged-meals ‘miracle’

Food vendors brace for packaged-meals ‘miracle’

When it comes to street dining, technological advances could be a curse

The controversial “grocery truck experiment” by the retail chain Big C is a rather alarming development for Thailand’s world-renowned yet chronically disorderly food industry. Big C has said it is testing the waters for mobile sales, but it’s raised fears that Thais who make ends meet by selling food and other stuff from the back of pickups and from motorcycle sidecars could be driven out of business. 
There is also a broader problem emerging with the ongoing evolution of food packaging, which could end up producing a marketing miracle. Packaged meals are streaming into convenience stores, chipping away at the income of the poor vendors who sell fresh meals for a living. In some instances, all that’s holding hungry tummies back from store shelves and refrigerated displays is the fact that packaged burgers and other foods still aren’t as nutritious or tasty as what’s sold fresh on the streets. Health-conscious consumers are also well aware of risks posed by preservatives in processed food.
The technology of packaged meals is bound to keep improving, though, and it will change lifestyles drastically. Whether Thailand ever achieves its aim of becoming “the world’s kitchen” or not, the extant problems are self-evident. And the people who will be affected most are the poorer citizens selling street food. They will have no answer if consumers can no longer tell the difference between packaged and fresh-cooked food. 
That day is already dawning in food-testing laboratories. The real tipping point on the street could arrive soon. When it does, more money will head to convenience stores at the expense of the vendors outside, whose premises have the disadvantages of dust, grime, car fumes and mosquitoes. For now, there are so many of them that a Western news outlet’s tongue-in-cheek report that half of Thais were cooking food for the other half didn’t sound like too much of an overstatement.
Fried rice has long been found in convenience stores, along with boiled rice, rice with sweet basil, roasted pork with sticky rice and pad thai and other noodle dishes that are usually of poor quality. But other Thai favourites are being added every day. All the signature Thai street foods are either in the stores already or on their way. Once food-processing technology can make them taste as good as the fresh varieties, what will the street vendors do? A lucky few might join the corporate production process, but the number swept aside will be staggering.
Helping the vendors for now is their prices. Convenience stores charge considerably more for relatively less tasty dishes. When economies of scale come fully into play, though, a lot of traditional vendors will be in trouble. 
How can Thailand cope with such a huge potential change? Well, consider that our food culture is by no means factory-based. Despite the glut of evidence to the contrary, we’re not fundamentally big fans of fast food or 7-Eleven meals, and hence the preponderance of street vendors across the country. Young Thais are constantly opening food stalls and rolling out food carts, safe in the knowledge that “people must eat”.
The signs are grim, but we’re a long way from losing hope.

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