Foreign businessmen hope to trade Lao sweetcorn milk
Foreign businessmen hope to trade Lao sweetcorn milk
Businessmen from Singapore and Thailand are extremely interested in sweetcorn milk from Laos and hope to be representatives or dealers in their c ountries if the Lao producer can supply them.
An official of the Lao Agro Industry Company (LAICO), Laos' only fruit and vegetable canning company, reported on Friday that recently there was a businessman from Singapore who expressed interest in being the exclusive representative for the product in Singapore.
“The company is very pleased to hear that, but we cannot go ahead with it yet because the product has a storage life of only two weeks,” the official said.
The very short shelf-life is because the produc er does not use any preservatives like formalin in the product.
“Our sweetcorn milk is fresh,” the official stressed.
He said the Singporean businessman became interested in the product when he visited Laos recently as a tourist and tried it a few times; he then took the contact numbers and address printed on the bottle.
Company Factory Manager Mr Chanin Awakulpanich said on Tuesday that there used to be a Thai businessman who was also interested to import the product to supply to the Thai market.
“However with him we face the same problem and so have had to delay the business cooperation indefinitely,” Chanin said.
“If the businessmen are really interested in our product it will be good to work with them in the future when we can extend the life of the product.”
LAICO produces sweetcorn milk on its five-hectare site in Thoulakkhom district of Vientiane province for supply to Vientiane and the provinces. It now produces 8,000 to 12,000 300ml bottles per day.
It is enjoying increased production and sales as it expands the distribution of its products. The company managed to get a foothold in the provinces after attending business exhibitions held locally.
The prod uct is available at mini-marts in Vientiane and the provinces, while the company has also provided refrigerators for some shops so they can store the drinks.
It began producing 1,000 bottles of the drink each day in July 2009. The product can be stored for up two weeks in a refrigerator if the temperature is kept below 4C.
The drink is rich in fibre and vitamins A, B1 and B3, and is made from locally grown sweetcorn.
The company works with local farmers to grow sweetcorn on a million square metres. The farmers supply many tonnes of sweetcorn to the company's processing plant each day.
It also produces the pineapple juice and orange juice that are being supplied to local markets, mainly in Vientiane.
LAICO was established in 1994. It produces pickled garlic, canned sweet corn and sugar palm seeds in syrup for both export and local supply. About five percent is sold on the domestic market while the remaining 95 percent is exported.
The official said most of the canned sweet corn is exported to European markets, about 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes a year. It produces about 2,000 tonnes of canned palm seeds annually, exporting almost 80 percent to the Thai market and almost 20 percent to the Cambodian, Malaysian and Vietnamese markets. The pickled garlic is mainly for local markets.
It has three i nternational accreditations which certify production and product quality, namely Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) and British Retail Consortium (BRC).
