ParinyaTumwattana has successfully created a good balance between his hobbies and his management of Bang-kok's Yingcharoen Fresh Market.

Parinya, 47, managing director of Suwapee Holding, loves golf, diving and skiing as these activities allow him to travel to the most beautiful locations around the world.

 "I love a long travel session at least once a year to a new place I have never visited before," he says. "With travelling, I have a chance to experience a new way of living. And I can apply what I have seen to my fresh market."

Among the countries he has visited, Japan is his favourite.

"I like Japan as the people have good discipline and always concentrate on every detail when they work," says Parinya, adding that this is quite similar to the Lord Buddha's teachings that encourage people to concentrate their minds on the present, not the past or the future.

"I also love playing golf as it leads me to exercise and make friends and connections," he says. "I love diving for the beautiful things that surround me underwater. Only good memories are what you can keep with

you forever, not wealth or

the assets around you."

Parinya doesn't like to be overly busy with work, preferring to lead a comfortable and easy life.

He plans to retire at age 52. For the next five years before his retirement, Parinya will pass on responsibility for the fresh market to his son Jarin and his grandson Vikrom.

Jarin, 24, and Vikrom, 25, have joined as directors of Suwapee Holding, which has operated the Yingcha-roen Market in Bangkok's Saphan Mai area for almost 50 years.

Nakarin, 28, Parinya's oldest son, is now working as a computer programmer in California, while his youngest daughter Rarin, 18, is studying accounting at Chulalong-korn University and plans to join the family business after graduation.

Parinya says his life has been totally changed since he took full charge of Yingcha-roen Market six years ago.

"I used to deal with rich people when I worked for Gold Master [jewellery and ornament company]. But once I became in charge of the Yingcharoen market, I needed to adjust myself to a simple and self-sufficient life," he says.

Parinya sees his fresh market as a university of life as it reflects conventional ways of living and is a vital source of food and other products for lower-income people.

"More than 10,000 people are involved with our fresh market every day," he says, adding that there were currently more than 2,000 vendors at Yingcharoen Market. The market attracts 9,000 vehicles and 15,000 visitors a day.

"I like a straightforward style of management. Suwa-pee Holding, which runs Yingcharoen Market, is an organisation with almost 50 years of history so that it has certain strengths. I don't like any restructuring of our organisation and nobody has been fired during my term of leadership," he says.

Parinya dreams of vertically expanding his Yingcharoen Market into related businesses by combining market vendors and small and medium-sized suppliers of products such as noodles and sausages in one place.

"I am studying an investment project in the next two to three years to convert part of a 20-rai plot, which is now a parking lot, into a factory complex for small and medium-size food manufacturers so that they can deliver products directly to individual vendors in the market", he says.

Yingcharoen Market has recently established a central market for chickens - the Chicken Club - so that its vendors can pool their purchase orders to buy directly from farms.

Parinya says the new central market will allow vendors to purchase chickens from farms without the need for middlemen. The market also provides vendors with financial support so they can pay farms in cash, which further reduces the purchase price.

Parinya, who is also president of Thai Fresh Market Association, also dreams of making fresh markets more competitive against international superstores.

He says the large-scale expansion of modern superstores has had a heavy impact on fresh-food markets in Bangkok, particularly those that have been unable to adjust to the competition. Out of 200 fresh markets in Bangkok and surrounding areas, almost 50 have closed as a result of the new competition.

He says fresh-food markets have lost their monopoly power to big foreign retailers, which have successfully promoted their superstores as a new alternative for Thai consumers.

"I myself believe that conventional fresh markets can survive if they know how to adjust to the competition," says Parinya, adding that low-income consumer groups cannot afford to spend at superstores and conventional fresh markets are still their preferred food retailers.

He adds that the Yingcharoen Market will open a centre for Otop (One Tambon One Product) items as well as a cooking school next month.

Kwanchai

 Rungfapaisarn

 The Nation