An opportunity to increase Thai food export

Contributed by: Finance Committee of JTBF
H. Motomura (Chairman)

  Recently, there is a never decreasing stream in regard to Japanese consumers' allergic reaction against imported food products from China. It is no wonder because there have been a series of overwhelmingly shocking news. Still fresh in our memory is a case of harmful dry milk contaminated with melamine with an intention of disguising rich protein content. It is said to cause the kidney stone. Dairy farmers and brokers were engaged in the secret maneuvers, to which government gave silent approvals. It seems to suggest the structural issues are in the background.

  It is said that over 50 thousands of Chinese people suffered from health damages and a few died. The melamine contamination has spread to other food products such as milk, yogurt and ice cream. Japan, too, suffered serious damages in terms of recalling doubtful products from the market.

  Other than the case of melamine contamination, there have been uncountable similar cases such as methamidophos-contaminated meat bun, frozen gyoza contaminated with phosphor insecticide, source-disguised meat bun, instant noodles made by reusing oils accumulated in drainage, on and on.

  According to the data of Japan Frozen Food Association, consumption of frozen foods in Japan reached 2,670 thousands tons, 20.9 kg per capita, in 2007, a sharp increase by 6 times since 30 years ago. Looking into supply sources of the total consumption, 1,140 thousands tons are imported, of which 42% are from china.

  In line with this trend, there has been an increasing awareness of food safety risks as associated with chemical residues such as antibiotics, antibacterial agent, agricultural chemicals and so on. Food safety of Japanese consumers is being threatened, so to speak. Under the situation as such, Thai food industry is said to be potential of further penetration to Japanese market. I wonder why they do not enhance marketing activities with an emphasis put on safety and peace of mind. Or do they just underestimate the opportunity?

  For example, Foodex is a food exhibition being held annually in Japan with an objective to attract buyers coming from world over. To my observation, however, Thai food industry is missing these big opportunities without making positive and appealing approaches to the buyers. As one of Thai-favored Japanese, I can not stop feeling frustrated.

  I would not say that they have not paid any effort in Foodex. In fact, in past few years, in the Thai booth, they characterized Thailand as "Kitchen of the World" and put focus on sales and advertisement of Thai food material to be accepted by world-wide consumers. In Foodex of this year in March, they invited Miss Thailand to the booth and handed over recipes of Thai foods to visitors. Many improvements have been observed as compared to past years.

  In past years, they just displayed canned Thai foods or other Thai food products such as noodle packs on the counter tables. The booth seemingly failed to attract visitors and, in fact, there was few to stop and see. I several times saw stuffs had nothing to do other than chatting each other. At Vietnamese booth next to Thai, beauties in traditional ao-dai costumes were serving to visitors, with welcoming smiles, the local shrimps as they were just cooked in "tempura" in front of visitors. It was a remarkable distinction.

  Since a few years ago Thai side has been trying to improve. The booth space has been expanded. An advertisement pillar has become better than before. But frankly speaking, appealing power is not so high yet. Invitation of Miss Thailand itself may not be sufficient enough. Introduction of Thai food material was undertaken by subcontractors but it was not well coordinated. A segregated area was prepared to host special guests with Thai food but it was influential to limited attendees only.

   In the beginning of this script, I referred to the current environment surrounding Japanese consumers. To sum up, import of frozen foods from China has been increasing year by year, which, in turn, is accompanied by increase of polluted foods. In the mean time, Japan has no way to improve self-supply of food material.

  Today, Japanese consumers have unrelenting disbelief against Chinese food. In the super markets, an increasing number of house wives check supply source and keep away from food products regardless of the price whenever they find China source on the display labels. It has ended up with an increase of fraud labeling also, such as eels of China source disguisedly labeled as Japan internal. It is to make wrong use of Japanese consumer's reliance on the internal source. This kind of fraud is not limited to import foods. Japanese internal sources have also come to embarrass consumers by a number of cases such as Meathope Corp's disguised meat source, Kiccho restaurant's disguised menu, Akahuku Corp's disguised material source and so on. Those are really unacceptable crimes in terms of betraying business ethics and chasing after profit only.

   The current situation as such makes me confident that a short-cut path to attracting consumers, Japanese as well as world-wide, is a strict execution of food safety policies as driven by government followed by private sectors on the side of supply country. In this sense, Thailand faces a big opportunity to increase food export to Japan.

  Let me introduce a typical example of Indonesia, their efforts to enhance safety and peace of mind in regard to cultured shrimps. They place ponds for breeding in the merge of fresh and tide sea water. They do not rely on antibiotics or antibacterial agent at all. Shrimps are fed by weeds and planktons as they grow proliferously. In the dry season, the ponds are drained and disinfected by sunlight and then watered to breed weeds. The pond are drained again to make weeds fermented and composted. Watering ponds again germinates a tremendous amount of planktons. The shrimps as bred in this manner are considered to guarantee safety and peace of mind, thus gaining in popularity of Japanese consumers. (ref. "Never eat. It is dangerous.")

  Above example is more on efforts of the private sector. On the side of Thailand, government sectors with high consciousness may need to drive food safety policies, namely, to seek for alliances with external organizations, Japanese and world wide, which have attained high reliance through long time involvement in food safety inspections and investigations, and/or to establish an authorized third party inspection/authentication institution, of which authentification will eventually be accepted and considered to guarantee safety of Thai foods. If Thailand is successful to establish a business model which makes consumers, Japanese and world wide, reliant on safety of Thai food material, Thailand will become "Kitchen of the World" in its true sense.

  In regard to the next Foodex in Japan, it is to be noted that Japanese visitors may have keen consiousness on "safety and peace of mind" in accordance to the situation above described. Thailand could hopefully demonstrate that they are consistently paying efforts to enhance food safety, even though the efforts might not be eye-catching so much. If they are successful in the demonstration, it could be a step ahead for capturing a big opportuniy to expand export to Japan. Why not? Thai food and food material themselves are delicious. There is no doubt on that point, indeed.