Food Pacific Manufacturing Journal

Rising above industry challenges

Thailand's food processing and agricultural sectors are critical to the local economy. Early this year, the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) also reported these sectors represented the second highest number of applications for investment promotion in 2020. By investment value, these sectors accounted for 41.1 billion baht, only next to electrical appliances and electronics with 50.3 billion baht.

While the current situation is less than ideal for the manufacturing side, it remains that the country's F&B industry will turn the corner. Our snapshot of the Thai food industry (page 6) gathers input from notable sources including insights from Visit Limlurcha, chairman of Thailand's Food Processing Industries Club, Federation of Thai Industries, and president of the Thai Food Processors Association. Emphasis on automation, improving standards, and sustainable production, packaging, and distribution is considered key to overcoming pandemic-related setbacks and other industry challenges. Many of the new technology will be showcased at ProPak Asia, which expects to return to its usual schedule in June.

In other developments, it's worth noting that more and more plant-based food investments are being announced, a few of them are Givaudan and Bühler’s protein innovation centre in Singapore, ADM's new plant-based lab also in Singapore, and AAK's partnership with Invita to tap the growing plant-based market in Australia and New Zealand.