British dairies seek greater local foothold
Thailand, Indonesia are priority markets
Britain is campaigning to raise consumption of the country’s dairy products in Thailand because it sees great potential in the country.
Mike Johnston, chief executive of the Dairy Council for Northern Ireland, visited Thailand yesterday. He said this country and Indonesia are priority markets for promoting consumption of British dairy products via the business-to-business (B2B) channel.
Based in Belfast, the council acts on behalf of the dairy industry, promoting the quality of British milk and dairy products.
“We see a great potential in Thailand,” Mr Johnston said. “Thailand’s population is estimated to grow by 1.7% by 2020, along with the continuously growing tourism business and urbanisation. Some 32% of Thailand’s population eats products from the UK at least once per day.”
He predicts Thailand’s dairy market to grow by a combined 6.9% by 2020, with dairy cream volume to rise 4.3%. Thailand’s food industry is expected to grow by a combined 30% during the period.
Dairy products from Britain have expanded via the B2B channel in Thailand for a decade. But the import share of dairy products from Britain into Thailand is less than 1%, trailing similar products from New Zealand, the EU and Australia, which make up 66%, 19% and 8% respectively.
“With such little consumption [of British dairy], we see a huge opportunity to increase the consumption of UK dairy products here,” Mr Johnston said.
According to Market Intelligence, Thailand’s ready-to-drink market was worth 51 billion baht in 2016, up 6.5% year-onyear. The growth came from the continuous promotion of dairy consumption by the government, while the private sector launched various dairy products.
Of the total, 20 billion baht was for soy milk, 11 billion was for flavoured milk, 18 billion was for cow’s milk and the rest was for powdered milk and goat’s milk.
The council is arranging a campaign called EU Dairy Naturally United Kingdom this year to promote consumption of dairy
in China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand.
“Thailand is the first country that we came to to promote our dairy products because it is one of our priority markets,” Mr Johnston said. “After that, we will go to South Korea, China and Indonesia. We hope consumption of UK dairy products in Thailand will increase from less than 1% to 5-10% of total imported dairy over the next 3-5 years.”
He stressed that the company doesn’t promote British dairy products on price, but will instead focus on product quality.
Mr Johnston said British dairy products are produced to the high standards of the EU. All dairy farms are registered with comprehensive inspection programmes, he said.