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One of Global Foodture’s targeted regions is Thailand. It’s food and beverages sector is more mature compared to others. The sector is always sensitive to foreign trends and changes in consumers preferences, but COVID-19 has only had a temporary impact on the sector’s growth. Why?

• Dynamic urbanisation mostly concentrated around Bangkok and Central Thailand
• Advanced use of technology with a growing mobile phone, social media and internet penetration
• Growing e-marketplaces
• Export orientation, with plenty of resources and cultures, becoming ‘the world’s kitchen’

The largest segments of the food and beverages sector in Thailand are bread and bakery products, seafood sector, packaged food sector and the meat segment.

The Thai agrifood sector has been more successful in adapting to international trends than most other ASEAN countries, but its conservative manner, built on hundreds of years of tradition can hinder development and innovation.

Critical points of the Thai food and beverages industry include:

• Dependence on tourism and export markets: In 2019, Thailand had nearly 40 million annual tourists, which has required a large amount of imported food. Many distributors and importers have specialised in supplying to the tourism industry. As the COVID-19 heavily impacted the tourist market, these companies have been suffering.

• Food security issues: even the largest agricultural countries showed their vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Thai agrifood sector is built up to export, and food availability is rarely an issue when the neighbouring countries are happy to sell to Thailand. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced food security back on to the agenda.

• Organic farming can be an option for exporters to increase their income per rai (1 rai=1,600 square metres). In the ASEAN region, excluding Singapore, the increasing consumption of organic food may help this segment reach double the growth rate of non-organic products.

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