The first step of Thai food industry revolution to Green Industry
Thai food Industry has had an importance in Thai economics for a long time because it has used domestic material for 80% in production and provided employment for people along the entire process and added valued for Thailand’s economic all along. Thai food industry faces the crucial competition in both domestic and oversea market now. Trade barrier is still the heavy problem for Thai entrepreneurs. Nowadays, environmental conservation is hot issue in worldwide and consumers care about this issue. Therefore, it is a caution for entrepreneurs and factories to develop and improve in order to compete in the market stably.
Ministry of economics, the office of industrial economics and national food institute give the importance in an urgent issue to make food entrepreneurs realize and care about environment, aiming to shift Thai food industry to be superior in production and environmental conservation (Green Productivity) 84 factories announce their attention to be role model for “factory with permanent environmental management” to celebrate the auspicious occasion on His Majesty’s 7 cycle birth day, 84 year-old on 5th December, the project was launched on 30th September.
The purpose of the project is to encourage Thai food industry to be able to compete in international market in long term and strengthen ability in world competition. The project aims to reduce unnecessary cost, resource, energy, and waste but aims to add the value to the products at the same time. The product that is manufactured must be friendly with environment in order to gain customers’ confidence and response the trend of consumption.
168 volunteer companies will be divided into 2 groups, 84 factories per group. One group will adopt quality and safety system for production process by using Supply Chain Management, while another group will adapt environmental management system. However, both groups announce their attention that they will apply either environmental management system to their production process permanently which will result in a positive effect to both manufacturers and consumers.
The result of the project, which is has launched for 4 years, shows that participating factories can reduce production cost by 51 million baht and reduce greenhouse gas about 2827 tons per year. Mr. Petch Chinbootra, Director of National Food Institute will give the certification to manufacturers who adopt ” Green Productivity” and “Carbon Label” system to their facility in this fiscal year.
Reference Exporters Review, October 2011
