After five years of building awareness in Thailand, All Natural Foods plans to step into the global arena.

Flavoured milk fat has long been a key ingredient in ice-cream, but is never found in the ice-cream made by All Natural Foods Co Ltd.

Providing 19 Thai fruit-flavoured ice-creams - such as longan, corn milk and pineapple - the company sells its products under the brand name Bangon Farm.

Because Bangon Farm products are made solely with Thai fruits, the company's general manager Kajorn Thowsakul said they should be called "fruit ices" as a new category of Thai desserts instead of ice-cream.

"The main reason is that no milk product is contained in Bangon Farm products," Kajorn said.

Fruit ice contains no ingredients made from animal products.

It is made from various fresh tropical fruits, vegetables and herbs without any preservatives or artificial flavour or colour.

Kajorn said it was five years ago that he and company founder Pracha Pongsapa visited a fair featuring agricultural machines in Chanthaburi province, where the fertile land yields a variety of fruits.

A machine featured at the fair created tasty fruit ices.

Seeing no obvious competitors in the fruit-ice market, they then started the business with an initial investment of Bt15 million.

Kajorn said the company gradually iced various fruits and tested them before eventually deciding on 19 flavours.

All Natural Foods took a simple approach to testing the market.

It put some of its initial flavours into a bucket and sold them at a market in Chanthaburi.

Consumers were dubious until they tasted the products, Kajorn recalled.

The company then put the fruit ices in cups and sold them throughout the province.

When it was discovered that the products were not popular only with health-conscious consumers, but also tourists, Kajorn and Pracha decided to expand to Chonburi province, especially its seaside resorts.

Although the company concentrated on health-conscious consumers, it didn't want to lose another major market - dessert lovers.

To tap this market, All Natural Foods created its coconut ice-cream brand Roots.

Soon after that, a friend of Pracha proposed that the company produce samrong fruit juice made from a favourite fruit in Chanthaburi.

They sold this new product at a friend's souvenir shop under the brand name Kullanard.

Bangon Farm and Kullanard are the company's two major brands, representing 35 per cent and 60 per cent of its overall sales respectively.

The company distributes its three brands to 500 independent restaurants, chain outlets and supermarkets - including The Mall chain and the Emporium and Siam Paragon shopping complexes - in Bangkok and its outskirts and some other areas east of the capital.

This year, it plans to double its distribution channels but remain within the current area.

All Natural Foods is currently negotiating with several hypermarket operators.

To build awareness, the company has exhibited its products at several trade shows.

It arranges point-of-sale promotions and advertises in magazines.

Last year All Natural Foods spent Bt3 million on advertising and this year it has allocated Bt6 million for advertising and other promotional activity.

It also plans to export its products next year and is studying the market potential of various countries.

Kajorn said the company had not selected particular export markets yet but companies from Australia, the United States and Japan had expressed interest in All Natural Foods' brands.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation