Depending on the patient’s limitations, the process would take anywhere from an hour to three hours.

These observations inspired Bunlue to come up with a product that would reduce the time required for bed baths and make the overall task easier for busy nurses.

The owner of Barami Laboratories Co Ltd, which has been producing skincare products for other companies’ labels for many years, Bunlue plans to launch the Soap Shower Sheet under the company’s own BRE brand in the domestic and overseas markets in the second half of this year.

The company targets sales of up to 10 million sets for the first year, and the product is protected by patents secured in Thailand and overseas early this year, the company’s managing director and founder, Bunlue Kongchai, said in an interview with The Nation recently.

“I spent a year to research and develop what became the Soap Shower Sheet, after I saw the arduous nature of how the nurses bathe patients in their beds,” Bunlue said.

“They would spend typically at least one hour or as much as three hours per patient on this task. And that’s how it’s been done for more than a hundred years.

“That motivated me, as a medical doctor who graduated with a degree from Khon Kaen University, to devise an alternative approach. I wanted to come up with a way that would reduce the times it takes for bed baths and to make the procedure easier.”

A year after he started out in his research, Bunlue had produced the Soap Shower Sheet. The innovation takes in two steps. First, the cotton fabric that contains soap is rubbed across the patient’s body, cleaning the skin. In the second step, the cotton fabric that has some ingredients that absorb the soap is worked over the skin; a moisturising substance is also applied.

The end result is that the patients feel clean and refreshed, as if they had a regular bath, Bunlue said.

He tested the product on many patients in a hospital setting, before securing the patents from the Commerce Ministry and from patent authorising bodies overseas.

The Soap Shower Sheet has been recognised with a win in the ageing society category, corporate, at the Thailand Green Design Awards 2018 (TGDA2018).

The awards were conducted by the Kasetsart Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Product Improvement Institute (KAPI) of Kasetsart University. The winners were named in March.

Bunlue spent Bt20 million this year to set up the machinery to produce the Soap Shower Sheet.

With production planned to start in the second half of the year, the output will average at 1.5 million pieces a month.

“Our target customers include not only those looking after patients in hospitals or aged-care facilities, but also sports people who need to freshen up on the go, as well as tourists who do not have time take a shower in a tight travel schedule,” Bunlue said.

With the testing of the product on the target customer groups behind him, Bunlue is confident on the prospects for sales at home and abroad.

He is eyeing sales of to 10 million sets a year at an average price of Bt60 each. Half of the sales are expected from the home market, with the rest from overseas, including Singapore, Malaysia, the Middle East, the Philippines, Japan, China and Russia.

Bunlue said that the Soap Shower Sheet will be released under his first own brand BRE, drawing on the company’s long experience in making skincare products under its customers’ brands.

Bunlue established Barami Laboratories in 1995 for the research and development of skincare products for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that want to put out skincare products under their own brands. Such businesses made up his first target customer group.

I graduated as medical doctor with qualifications in skin care,” Bunlue said. “When I wanted to become entrepreneur in the field, I started to do research and development into skincare creams and sold these products to a skincare clinic run by friends.

“With this success from the clinic sales, I decided to expand my target customer base to include the mass market with a focus on SMEs that want to sell skincare products under their own brands.

“I offer them the advantage of small sizes for product purchases, starting from Bt3,000 per product. This is appealing for SMEs with smaller budgets. This strategy has seen the business grow at a double-digit rate every month, and the company is now generating sales at an average of Bt70 million a year,” Bunlue said.

After Bunlue’s years of success in producing skincare products for sale under his customers’ own brands, the BRE Soap Shower Sheet becomes the first of his company’s products to go out under an in-house band.

Alongside that effort, the company says it will also keep up its growth pace in the domestic market as well as other export markets. Theppadungporn Coconut exports its products to 45 countries.

Apisak Theppadungporn, managing director of Theppadungporn Coconut, said that the company’s brand is still not strong enough in Europe and its market share is not yet high.

“Our sales in comparison to the market consumption are still not high, so there is the potential to grow and capture more market share in Europe,” said Apisak.

He said that about 80 per cent of the company’s annual revenue is from exports. The European market alone contributes around 13-15 per cent of the export volumes.

“In the next five years, we expect the contribution from the European market to be at between 15 per cent and 20 per cent. The figure is not that much different from today because we want to grow more in every other region,” said Apisak, adding that in 2022, the company aims to achieve Bt10 billion in total sales revenue, with between 5 per cent and 10 per cent growth per year. The company posted Bt7 billion in total sales revenue, including exports, last year.

Apisak said the company is confident that the revenues from export markets this year will grow more than 10 per cent. It plans to introduce new products at the THAIFEX – World of Food Asia 2018 event, to be held from May 29 to June 2 at Impact Muang Thong Thani.

Teetiphun Theppadungporn, international marketing and sales manager, said that the three best-selling products of the company are coconut milk, coconut water and dipping sauce for chicken. The company has continuously marketed these three products overseas, with the United States being the major market. Other export destinations, such as Europe, Asia and Oceania, also saw higher growth driven by increasing demand.

The major export markets are the United States and Canada (55 per cent); Europe (13 per cent); Oceania, which includes Australia, New Zealand and Pacific islands (16 per cent); and Asia and other regions (15 per cent). In the overseas markets, canned coconut products remains the most popular, while the coconut milk UHT product enjoys popularity among Thai consumers.

“Starting from last year, the company has introduced its products in the AEC markets, with Myanmar the first market that the company entered in the bloc,” Teetiphun said.

“It has expanded through a local distributor and gained a very impressive response from Myanmar consumers. Considering the size of the Myanmar market, the company expects higher growth in the near future.”

For the domestic market and the marketing strategy for the Chaokoh and Mae Ploy brands, Theppadungporn Coconut will stick with offline channels for about 70 per cent of the total marketing activities. The rest of the activities will be routed online, in particular on social media aimed at the local and international markets.

The company will pay more attention to the online and social media channels for the promotion its coconut products, Teetiphun said. In 2017, the company did more work in online marketing and trading in order to reach out more to young consumers.

Despite fierce competition from other players and newcomers, the Chaokoh and Mae Ploy brands remains the market leader because of high product quality and customer loyalty programmes, Teetiphun said. The company has invested about y Bt50 million to expand the production capacity, improve the effectiveness of machinery and increase warehouse space to better serve export markets.

“We are the leading exporter of coconut milk in the world market and our focus remains with the coconut products. Though we have been a leading player for 42 years, we cannot stop developing high quality products if we want to maintain our leading position,” said Apisak, adding that the company’s business growth in the first quarter of this year mainly came from exports.

Apisak said that the company’s market expansion strategy “concentrates on manufacturing products that truly serve the consumers’ demands”. It does market research in each country in order to gain insights into consumer preferences and use that information for product development.

“We keep doing market research and analysis so that we can see the opportunities to enter into new markets globally,” said Apisak.

“For a while, the company has marketed the ready-to-drink coconut water, for which we have experienced a great market response, particularly from foreign consumers. This year, we will continue to satisfy our consumers by creating new flavours of ready-to-drink coconut water, which are black sesame, purple sweet potato and melon. We hope the new tastes will provide more varieties in choice for our customers.”

He added that each year, the company has set aside funds to improve its machinery and all the facilities in the factory for better efficiency and effectiveness in production and distribution.

For the snack food segment, he said, Theppadungporn Coconut has entered into this market since last year by introducing Chaokoh healthy roasted coconut chips with three flavours; original, sour cream and bacon cheese.

“It has also enjoyed a good response from the market as the product fits with the trendy lifestyles of young consumers who are concern more with health-conscious eating habits. This year, the company plans to launch a new flavour, Sri Racha chilli sauce,” he said

“We study consumers’ lifestyle and develop product based on their preference. Coconut milk is still our hero product because it’s the main ingredient for many cuisines.”