On Observing Foodex 2010 -advancing Thai booth-

Contributed by Food Development Committee, JTBF
Hiroshi Motomura

  When a terrible season has come to those who have an allergy to pollen, it is a start of Foodex exhibition which is held in Makuhari Messe every year. JTBF members, all Thai favors, went out to observe the exhibition on March 3rd. We were mostly interested in Thai booth, Kitchen of the world, which was located in the 2nd hall.

  Competing with excitements of Taiwanese and Korean booths, Thai booth attracted visitors with a new attempt this year. It was to offer Shokado Bento, 2 layered Japanese style lunch box. The Bento made the most of Thai flavor, sweet, gingery and sour, and was colorfully arranged to Japanese food style. Inside, were arranged in an orderly fashion, Pu Char (fried crab-claw with minced pork), Kanom Chieb Thai (Thai style shrimp dumpling), Popia Sod (raw spring roll), etc. All of them were tasty. I would call it a masterpiece of blending Thai and Japanese food cultures. If I were to raise a concern, it could be the price. In Japan these days, lunch boxes are in a trend of lowering price. You must be careful in setting the price target to be competitive. Anyway, improvement of Thai booth was highly evaluated and made us conceive expectation for further advancement.

With Mrs. Amparwon Pichalai, Minister (Commercial), Thai Embassy (2nd right)

  An overall impression of Thai booth for this year was that they were successful in visualizing appealing points to Japanese consumers and buyers. In the past, while they occupied a comparatively large space, they just displayed seasonings, canned or bottled products, tropical fruits, etc., without highlighting appealing points. This year, in turn, they were eager to attract visitors by various ways such as offering sample foods or demonstrating Thai foods/cocktail cooking. It was my pleasure to see that, in Thai booth, they shed Thai people's image of shyness and modesty and aggressively stepped ahead to convince visitors of appealing food culture of Thailand.

  In those shops which had repeatedly participated in Foodex in past years, it was apparent that they had learnt, from past experiences, how to penetrate into Japanese market. Take an example of dry fruits of durian or mangosteen, in the past, they displayed the dry fruits as they were packaged in quite a big bag. Improvement was that they were packaged in a small and charming bag, to be sold as snacks. It would be attractive for ladies or young generations. I was pleased to see that they were offering the small bags to visitors. They told their target was KIOSK to sell them as family packs. It looked they were right on target. I wished good lucks.

  Well, I found the chocolate shop, only one of the kind in Thai booth, again this year. No exaggeration to say it had an exquisite taste. Durian, the king of fruit, was covered by chocolate, which had directly come from Belgian traditional manufacturing process. You will feel first the chocolate with sweet taste and flavor melting in your mouth, then it is mixed with durian in the core, creating an unexplainable taste. It is blending of Eastern and Western cultures indeed. This chocolate shop entertained us with a unique taste as same as past years.

  We also visited Vietnamese, Malaysian, Filipino booths as well as booths of other Southeastern countries. All of them were not so active this year. In Vietnamese booth, while they used to be aggressive in selling vannamei shrimps in the past, they toned down just to display canned or bottled foods this year. I wondered whether or not they started to stay away from Japanese market where consumers were so demanding. In contrast, in Thai booth, they put focus on marketing promotion. We JTBF memebers, Thai favors, were frustrated in past years, but satisfied to a certain extent this year and left Foodex site, expecting further advancement of Thai booth towards the next year.

March 16th, 2010