With 36 years’ experience in the business of exporting orchids, Prayoon Orchids founder and managing director Prayoon Ployphommas acknowledges that the company has been at a disadvantage in regard to floral technology in particular, when compared with orchid producers from advanced markets – and especially the Netherlands.

For example, for Phalaennopsis orchids, his company’s plants take 25-26 months to reach maturity, whereas Dutch orchid producers need only 18 months, he said.

On price and quality, Prayoon Orchids is able to attract customers, but some buyers favour spending their money if an orchid wholesaler can deliver flowers within a shorter time, he added.

He explained that orchid exports globally are divided into three categories: cut flowers, for which Thailand is the largest exporter, although this advantage is offset by high competition in the segment; potted orchids, which have a low margin and also high competition; and orchid tissue culture.

“Most Thai exporters ship tropical orchid tissue culture, but we produce only spring orchid flowers, as we don’t have competitors in this segment,” Prayoon said.

“We have always told ourselves that we have to go to high technology in order to improve efficiency, but this takes time; meanwhile, we have to open new markets, especially where there are no problems with plant quarantine, as that is a high cost for orchid buyers,” he said.

As a wholesale exporter, Prayoon said the company must help save costs for overseas buyers, especially on transportation.

Orchid exports in general are transported by air, but the company can also export by sea thanks to its innovative production.

The company’s innovation enables customers to save up to Bt60 million per shipment, he added.

Prayoon decided to draw up a five-year business plan to maximise orchid production, and to open up his orchid farm business in Khao Yai, Nakhon Ratchasima, as a channel for both foreign and domestic customers who want to see its range of flowers before making a final decision on what to purchase.

“Having a public garden, apart from a laboratory and private plantations, will help us to open up markets more easily, as customers can visit the garden and tell us what types of orchid they want in the next few months.

“We are able to serve the right products to the right markets. Moreover, we can see the investment ability of each customer, and the character of each customer, in order to offer the right services to them,” he added.

The company opened its garden at the end of last year, since which time there has been good feedback from visitors, many of whom have ordered orchids from the company for the first time.

Having the garden enables it to supply flowering orchid plants throughout the year, while this type of business provides a higher margin than merely selling orchid plants and tissue culture, the company founder said.

A flowering orchid plant in a bottle sells for Bt50, while a bottled plant not in flower fetches just Bt10.

Prayoon Orchids targets annual growth of 10 per cent – double the current level – thanks to implementation of the five-year plan, he said.

The plan should also attract customers within Thailand, after the company exported 100 per cent of its output during its first 35 years in business.

That occurred in 1985 when she ran the OTOP business at the Wat Sai Floating Market in Bangkok. Now, 30 years later, Nisa has a fleet of 1,800 tour buses operating nationwide, 351 staff and annual revenue of more than Bt200 million.

When she took over the company it was running at a net loss.

Her company, OA Transport Co Ltd, is targeting average annual growth of 10 per cent a year in line with tourism industry growth.

“As a result [of the debtor not having the money] me and my husband made a decision to do the business and tried to learn how to do it,” said Nisa, the president of OA Transport.

Doing so involved a steep learning curve. To help her ease into the business, Nisa approached tour operators who knew her from her OTOP days and asked them to steer business her way.

She also asked the 20 staff she inherited to help make the transition as painless as possible, telling them that their failure to help may result in the business being suspended and sold.

She said that “strong collaboration” meant the original 10 coaches were still in operation.

Nisa also thanked the tour operators who have supported her despite there being strong demand to use other services for domestic and foreign tourists.

She said she continually had to expand the business to serve demand.

There have however been tough times. Perhaps none more so than the aftermath of the 2004tsunami that devastated major tourist destinations in the South.

“At that time, we tried to survive this crisis and keep our staff by cutting prices and also contracting tour operators and asking them to use our coaches at locations that still had tourist,” Nisa said.

It took about three months before the situation began to turn for the better, she said.

Nisa said the key of success was being sincere with customers and doing everything to try and make sure they are satisfied.

More than few companies could take a leaf out of her book.

The ambitious farmer also plans to export his melons to Singapore, South Korea and Dubai this year.

“My thanks go to the Agricultural Land Reform Office and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives [BAAC], which suggested that I and my friends consider changing from growing rice to other crops such as fruits or vegetables, which require less water at a time of drought,” he said.

Until then, Sawas had been a rice farmer since finishing primary-school Grade 4 some 40 years ago, while his father and grandfather had also been rice farmers before him.

“When I grew rice on 20 rai [3.2 hectares] of family land, it generated average income of Bt350,000 a year, with two rice harvests each year. All of my income was used to repay debt, after borrowing money to buy fertiliser, feed, and so on. The debt situation grew to the point that we were unable to do anything to improve my family life,” he explained.

Then, in 2011, after flooding hit the family farm and others in the province, the Agriculture Ministry’s Agricultural Land Reform Office held a seminar and took rice farmers to visit a closed-end melon farm – a greenhouse operation – in Suphan Buri province that had survived the flood and was able to continue to grow its produce.

This persuaded him to try melon farming, and he initially borrowed Bt800,000 from the BAAC to get the operation going.

However, Sawas’s open-end – outdoor – melon farm did not prove successful, as it required more insecticide than an indoor operation, besides failing to yield sufficient produce.

He and a group of 14 friends then decided to build housing for melon cultivation under the closed-end method, and were able to borrow Bt3 million from the BAAC to construct 58 melon houses on about 300 rai of land in their area.

This enabled them to grow an average of 650 plants per enclosure, with the plants starting to bear fruit 85 days later.

His and his friends’ farms were able to grow a total of 49,010 kilograms of melons in their first crop, and their collective output fetched Bt85 per kilo, or Bt4.16 million in total.

After this initial success, Sawas’s group – Community Enterprises of Melon Rum Chai Pattana Village – expanded its membership to a family of 30 farmers.

The group now supplies an average of 1,560kg of melons per week, with sales made to the Tops Super Centre chain and hotels at prices of Bt80-Bt85 per kilo.

“However, our output was unable to meet demand, so the group has had to expand by building another 45 houses to double our production capacity to serve our existing market – and to export our produce,” said the entrepreneurial farmer.

To support the business expansion, the community enterprise last year received an additional loan of Bt10 million from the BAAC, guaranteed by Thailand Credit Guarantee Corp.

The enterprise now also goes beyond just melon farming, having undertaken research and developed products such as Thai melon dessert, ice cream and dried melon.

These products are distributed both in Thailand and overseas.

“Although facing drought this year, our farm can continue to grow melon, as it is a fruit that needs little water. It is a challenge for farmers to find alternative crops that generate higher returns than rice and other community crops. When we changed what we were growing, we got the best possible advice from the Agriculture Ministry – and it changed our lives,” Sawas said.

“In my view, Thai farmers can grow other plants that will improve their lives, rather than cultivating community crops where they have to wait and see the price quoted on the global market.

“Demand for alternative fruits and vegetables, such as melon, organic fruits and vegetables, is still strong. They should try to learn and switch over to something that would improve their lives, without needing to ask for a government subsidy,” he said.

This year, when the 45 additional houses are completed, Community Enterprises of Melon Rum Chai Pattana Village will double its capacity and expand its business to the export market.

Undertaking integrated agriculture – production, processing and marketing – ourselves is the way to sustainable farming, Sawas added.

Chivit Thamma Da – which means ‘simple life’ in English – has been awarded a “Best of Wongnai 2016”! rating by Wongnai, by far the most important restaurant guide for the Thai market.

The Chiang Mai coffee house has been rated “TOP CHOICE 2015” by the Chinese travel sitewww.lianorg.com.

Nattamon established the business after marrying Joakim Holmberg, 47, who is from Sweden.

“I resigned from my job, as an air stewardess at Thai Airways International, after getting married and moved to China to stay with my husband, as that was where he was doing business. Over the course of a year in China, I learned how to cook and also had the time to consider what I and my husband could do together in Thailand,” she said.

After the pair returned to Thailand, they decided to live in Chiang Rai province because of its tranquillity and closeness to nature, which suited the family.

Nattamon then spent two years studying coffee and bakery catering with a view to setting up her own operation.

“I decided to go into coffee and bakery business because when I travelled around the world as an air stewardess, I loved to sit at the coffee houses in Europe and elsewhere. When I decided to go into business myself, I believed I should do something that I loved, so a coffee and bakery house was the answer,” she explained.

Two years after learning how to make delicious coffee, soft drinks and bakery items, she and Joakim spent Bt10 million of their savings to construct – in colonial architecture style – a coffee house on one rai (0.2 hectare) of land close to the Kok river in Chiang Rai province.

One year after the building and landscaping work was completed, Chivit Thamma Da Coffee House opened for business, generating sales of Bt9,000 on its very first day.

“This [level of sales] was a pleasant surprise, and gave us confidence in the potential success of the business,” she said.

Now, four years on, the establishment has average daily sales of Bt50,000.

On the back of this success, Nattamon is investing up to Bt10 million in establishing an organic farm to grow all the fruit and vegetables needed for the restaurant side of the coffee and bakery house business.

Located at Doi Mae Salong in Chiang Rai province, the farm will start growing plants next year.

“This will meet our business concept of serving clean food to our customers,” she said.

“When running a food business, the quality of the raw materials, the taste of the food, and the atmosphere of the house are the keys to success. When the customers love your food, they will spread the word, and some of them also share my coffee house on their Facebook and Instagram pages.

“This is the power of social media – promoting our restaurant so that all visitors to Chiang Rai have to check in at my shop,” she added.

He put savings of just Bt1 million into the new venture, and the business has since expanded into one generating revenue of Bt10 million, with double-digit annual growth targeted for this year and the next five years.

“I started my business with something that had a connection to my lifestyle. I love to drink coffee, and I had been trying to find the best-flavour coffee from domestic and overseas sources since I started as an IT employee at a corporate business.

“I then visited the ‘China Coffee Fair’ in 2011 and tasted Cafedirect from the UK, which was promoting its products at the event. I loved the Cafedirect flavour and decided to negotiate with the company to be the exclusive distributor of its products in Thailand,” Chate, the founder and managing director of Renova Foods Co, said during an interview with The Nation.

He said he had used his savings to order the first three shipments of Cafedirect coffee for local distribution.

The premium products from Britain enabled him to focus on top supermarkets such as The Mall Group, Central Food Retail, Villa Market, Gourmet Market and Home Fresh Mart.

“Our coffee got positive feedback from the market, so we then decided to expand our range from coffee to other products, and especially fruit juices,” he said.

The company now imports 13 food and drink products for distribution around the country, with the focus remaining on the sale of premium items.

This enabled Renova Foods to bring in revenue of about Bt10 million last year.

The company plans to boost its range from 13 products to 30 categories during the course of this year, which should make it possible to achieve growth in double digits from last year’s level, Chate said.

“The key to our success is our focus on quality products and having a marketing strategy that entails a close relationship with our customers. We also cut operating costs such as logistics and accounting by outsourcing such functions to specialists, which in turn gives us the flexibility to focus on the products and the business,” he explained.

As Renova Foods is a small company, it is vital to reduce fixed costs and focus on the key aspects of running the business – that is, products and marketing – he stressed.

“We concentrate on finding quality products to serve our target group, and also on how to distribute our products to customers. This is the main key to our success. Outsourcing other operations to cut operating costs is the way to keep our business slim and flexible, with a view to driving long-term growth,” the company founder said.

Renova Foods currently employs five people.

“My partner wanted to build a residence for himself, on 17 rai [2.7 hectares] of land in Chiang Mai; a sustainable building, including energy-saving, water-saving and zero waste. But there were no construction or home-building companies capable of meeting his demands.

“Schmidt therefore opted to do it himself, so we decided to set up a new business, CNX Construction, to build his home, and also to propose the same concept to the market this year,” Nattapong said during an interview with The Nation after the grand opening of Phi Suea House yesterday.

The company was established in 2013 with registered capital of Bt5 million, with Schmidt’s Bt200-million Phi Suea House being its first development project.

The residence includes the latest in energy systems: solar-powered hydrogen storage.

There will eventually be 114 kilowatts of photovoltaic panels generating around 441kWh of electricity a day, part of which will be stored in two 2,000-ampere-hour lead-acid battery banks.

Electrolysers will then convert additional excess power into hydrogen by applying an electric current to water. The hydrogen will then be stored until it is needed, typically at night, at which point it will be changed back into electricity via fuel cells.

Nattapong described the system as the most effective and ecologically friendly way to store the energy produced. In addition, the process is entirely clean, with oxygen and water being its only by-products.

“We had developed solar-powered hydrogen storage from a pilot project for a telecom business, but it was still at the study stage. We have, however, now been able to develop it for use in the building” of Phi Suea House, he said.

Using this technology and now having the experience of sustainable construction, CNX started business in earnest, its first customer requiring the development of six sustainable luxury residential units – The Sanctum – in Chiang Mai in a project worth nearly Bt282 million.

The project will commence construction this year, with units being offered for Bt43 million apiece.

“Although there are a number of design and building businesses in the market, ours is differentiated as we design and construct sustainable buildings that are not only energy-saving. We design the overall sustainable concept, such as the water-treatment system, the selection of environment-friendly construction materials – and develop under the zero-waste concept.

“As a result, we are confident that we can complete with other design and building firms operating in the market,” Nattapong said.

CNX Construction’s first customer, owner of The Sanctum project, was won over when Phi Suea House was still being developed last year, which shows that such innovative design and building is attractive in a challenging and competitive market, he said.

“However, we cannot estimate how much income will be generated in the next year, although we will generate about Bt200 million when Phi Suea House is completed in the middle of the year,” the co-founder said.

After four months of research, the 43-year-old academic-turned-entrepreneur came up with her first product, PARRI, an Italian soda beverage with sparkling water that is 100 per cent naturally sourced from Suan Phueng district, in Ratchaburi province, as the major component in the production process.

“I know natural mineral water is good for health. So, I made the drink because I want Thai people to drink more mineral water,” she said.

The main selling point is the use of minerals from natural sources as the central ingredient. The water is then sweetened with pure sugar cane, and the finest-grade imported syrup and the sweet aroma of a processed gas gives added freshness, she explained.

The target group is people of all ages who are in-trend, like a little sweetness, and want to be refreshed and healthy.

Parida has registered the PARRI trade mark as a patented product.

There are many health-drink brands these days, but she said the key factor which made PARRI different from other brands was the taste.

“As the weather in Thailand is humid, we need drinks that make us fresh. Who doesn’t like a fizzy healthy drink that quenches thirst? Its honey-lemon flavour will soothe and refresh just about anyone,” she said.

PARRI’s original flavour is honey lemon, which is sold in Thailand at Bt35 for a 330-millilitre bottle.

Despite only launching the product last November, many international traders have made enquiries to export her beverage to neighbouring countries and the Middle East.

She initially has plans to export PARRI in a number of flavours – raspberry, blue-sky orange, blackcurrant, kiwi and mixed berry – to China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Brunei.

“I think it is a good start. The AEC [Asean Economic Community] has now made distribution even more plausible, as the [import] levy is no longer the show-stopper,” she said.

Graduating with a doctorate degree in international communications from Thammasat University 10 years ago, Parida pursued her dream as a university lecturer, but decided to leave her career three months ago to formally start her business after undergoing around a year of preparatory work following PARRI Intertrade’s establishment.

She carried out all the processes by herself. It first took her four months to find the right sweet-drink formula, and a factory to produce her beverage.

The next step was requesting halal certification from the Food and Drug Administration, which took another three to four months.

This was followed by a period of going from place to place contacting modern-trade supermarket operators, and setting up a logistics and transportation system.

The lecturer-turned-entrepreneur said it was hard to say what had made her leave her full-time job and invest in a business for the very first time.

“I’d say many people do this to prove that if they are capable, they can do anything – and so did I,” she said.

A challenge, but great fun

Parida believes her change of direction has been both a challenge and great fun in terms of fully running a business from scratch.

“Well, I’m an academic person, who was teaching for a living. However, there were opportunities [to go into business] here and there. I had never run a business before. It might be risky, but I worked hard and have enjoyed every step along the way,” she said.

She is convinced her product will be recognised as a great product because of the extensive R&D she conducted throughout the development phase.

“Finally, I have the dream product, where all my requirements are met. It is both healthy and delicious, and that is what makes my product different from others in the market,” she added.