August 4, 2009

Thailand's Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) is making headway in Japan with its products now lining 7-Eleven shelves across the country, according to media reports.

 

Marking another milestone of its success overseas, the Thai agricultural conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group (CP) will make its products available at 7-Eleven stores in Japan this month, securing a foothold in the Japanese market.

 

Under the business deal concluded recently, ready-to-eat meals and semi-cooked products of CPF such as chicken teriyaki and shrimp with chili sauce will be sold at more than 12,000 outlets of 7-Eleven across Japan.

 

CPF senior vice-president Prasit Chalongchaichan said products are being sold under a co-brand with 7-Eleven initially but the company is trying to present the products with its own CP brand later on.

 

Chalongchaichan said that Japanese consumers generally had a preference toward local brands such as Ajinomoto and Nichirei and could take some time for them to accept a new brand, especially a foreign one.

 

Apart from targeting an extensive network of convenience stores such as 7- Eleven, CP is eyeing other retailers whose operations do not compete directly with the top convenience-store chain.

 

Smaller retailers including CircleK, or Ministop convenience stores with about 2,000 to 3,000 outlets are being considered.

 

Exporting semi-cooked food to the Japanese retail market is a great success for CP Group as Japan is considered to be among the toughest markets to penetrate when it comes to food items.

 

CPF, the SET-listed food flagship of the conglomerate, has been working vigorously to establish the CP brand in global markets in order to increase product value and remodel its business from raw-material trading to food processing.

 

Apart from regional exports, the CP Group is also shipping to other markets such as the US and the EU.

 

These new markets are expected to help raise export revenues from branded food products in foreign markets to between 15 percent and 20 percent of the value of CPF poultry meat exports this year or about THB20 billion, an 8-percent increase from the same period last year.

 

Last year, the company projected export revenues from CP-branded products at about THB2.7 billion.

 

However, there are a host of restrictions on shipments of chicken-related food products as the US itself is also a leading chicken producer and exporter.

 

European countries buy food with any meat except pork as they are still concerned about the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).