Published on June 24, 2005

Uni-President (Thailand), a subsidiary of Taiwan’s Uni-President Enterprise Corp that makes green tea, fruit juices and sports drinks under the Unif brand, plans to expand into soymilk, chilled products and instant noodles over the next three years.

Managing director Tezen Yang said the company was looking for partners in each of these new product categories, starting with soymilk, followed by chilled products and then instant noodles. It expects to find a partner for soymilk next year.

The investment needed for the three new product categories would be several hundred million baht, he said.

Yang said Uni-President was interested in entering the chilled product market because there was still room despite the number of products already available. It plans to produce chilled products – which include foodstuffs like yoghurt and pudding – for specific purposes rather than the general products available currently.

Being the market leader in Taiwan’s instant noodle market, the company wanted to enter the Thai market even though the competition is very tough.

Uni-President has just completed its first corporate restructuring in Thailand after revenues reached Bt2.4 billion last year. The changes were made to increase working flexibility and prepare for further business expansion.

The marketing department has been divided into three departments: domestic business development, which will handle all domestic marketing; corporate affairs, which will handle all communication; and corporate planning, which will oversee investment planning, business partner relations and product development. Yang said the changes would simplify work and speed up product development, resulting in cost competency.

Three strategies to be implemented following the restructuring are being the first brand to introduce the best product in each category, finding good partners to expand business quickly and emphasising training to increase employee capability.

Uni-President plans to restructure its organisation again within next two years, after revenues reach Bt4 billion.

Yang said the company would also have to continuously monitor market trends. For example, PET bottles are currently popular but the next trend would be Aseptic PET bottles.

Yang said Aseptic PET bottles were already popular in Taiwan and Uni-President would be the first to introduce this packaging in Thailand in the second half of this year.

He said products to be filled in Aseptic PET bottles must have low acidity as the process is cool-fill rather than the hot-fill currently used for PET bottles.

However, Uni-President is still discussing suitable packaging for the Thai market and will decide in the next three to six months, Yang said. It has joined hands with a Taiwanese company to build an Aseptic PET production line at its plant in Nakhon Pathom province.

Yang said ready-to-drink tea recorded the highest growth in the beverage market last year at 153 per cent.

Cereal drinks followed with growth of 44 per cent, and soymilk with 17 per cent.

The company’s Unif brand currently has a 43 per cent share of the Bt400 million medium juice market, a 29 per cent share of the Bt1.8 billion premium juice market, while its Unif iFirm brand has a 22 per cent share of Bt3.5 billion sports drink market.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation

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