Prantalay moves into instant-noodle toppings

Bt50 million will go on a new production line and Bt100 million on marketing and advertising during the rest of the year.

Chief marketing officer and chief operating officer Anurat Khokasai is confident it will be popular with Prantalay devotees and extend the customer base to the grass roots with the burgeoning instant-noodle market. "We have no interest in making instant noodles, but we do know about healthy noodle toppings," Anurat said.

Click by Prantalay has 10 initial varieties, including Shanghai minced pork, black-pepper chicken, chilli fish patty and seasoned shrimp. Prices range from Bt13 to Bt16 a packet.

Along with an aggressive all-channel marketing campaign, Prantalay is already distributing the products to hypermarkets, supercentres and supermarkets and gradually expanding to convenience stores and 80 traditional shops which have its freezers. It plans to negotiate deals with traditional shops until it has 40,000 outlets. Putting its own freezers in all of them will take a further nine-digit investment in the new year.

In the initial stage, the new product is expected to attract at least 5 per cent of noodle-eaters. It is estimated that 7 million packets of instant noodles are consumed daily, with the total estimated market value this year of Bt13 billion, up from Bt12 billion last year, Anurat said.

The target translates into sales revenue of Bt400 million this year and Bt1.5 billion next year, surpassing that of Prantalay frozen food, expected to be Bt1.2 billion next year from Bt1 billion this.