Thailand's top milk maker eyes 50% of local market

FrieslandCampina (Thailand) targets to capture half of the ready-to-drink milk market in the next four years, a top company official said recently.

Marco Bertacca, managing director, said the company would invest 5 billion baht (US$143.2 million) to improve the production efficiency of its Foremost milk and attain sales of over THB18 billion ($515.7 million) in five years.

"Even though FrieslandCampina (Thailand) is the No. 1 player in the ready-to-drink milk market with a share of 32 percent, valued at 6.4 billion baht, we have set an ambitious goal of taking over 50 percent of the (dairy) market by 2020," said Bertacca said, according to the Nation newspaper.

Bertacas also said that in the third quarter, the company would introduce a bottled premium milk that would have the same quality as pasteurised milk but longer shelf life.

"It will target young adult consumers, as we see more room to grow in this segment," he said.

In the second quarter last year, the company introduced a coconut-flavoured UHT milk, which the it said helped stimulate the market as a whole.

AC Nielsen has ranked FrieslandCampina as the leader of the THB20-billion Thai milk market as of 2015, followed by Thai Denmark with 24% market share, AB Foods with 10%, F&N 7% and Dutchmill 7%.

FrieslandCampina is a Dutch dairy manufacturer owned by a cooperative with membership of over 19,000 dairy farmers from the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.