MLBA11: October / November 2009

 

 

 

 

In May last year, Thailand gave its native chicken the go-signal to seek its own fortune over­seas. This came in the form of a "Q-Mark" label, awarded to Tana­osree Thai Chicken - the country's largest native-chicken processor.

 

A major chicken exporter ship­ping about 400,000 tonnes of poul­try products to Japan, the EU and other countries annually, Thailand never really made any effort to mar­ket its native fowl overseas before. Although native chicken is popular among locals, especially for soup because of its tenderness, they are not produced on a large commer­cial scale as they take longer to ma­ture and provide lesser meat with bigger bones than commercially-raised broilers.

 

Lately, however, the govern­ment thought that traditional chick­en, locally called kai baan, could get good response abroad because of its low cholesterol and better taste.

 

The native free-range chicken has therefore been included in the menu of the Kitchen of the World programme, a state-supported push to export Thai food products.

 

The awarding of the "Q-Mark" label to Tanaosree coincided with the company's opening of a new chicken processing plant in Na­khon Pathom province in central Thailand. The plant has the capac­ity to process about 1,000 birds an hour or 3,000 tonnes of meat an­nually, all supplied to local retail­ers, schools, hospitals and popular roasted-chicken restaurant chains.

 

The company's CEO, Juntanoo Satyawhadana, said this was Thai­land's first processing plant for traditional chicken. Tanaosree, ac­cording to Juntanoo, is one of only a handful of Thai farms that raise traditional chicken commercially. Optimistic about its new venture, he said traditional chicken had be­come more popular among consum­ers who prefer thin-skinned, tender meat that has less fat and choles­terol than commercial broilers.