Driven by the strong baht, the SET-listed Charoen Pokphand Foods Plc (CPF) has accelerated its investment overseas with a series of new food projects to take advantage of cheap financing costs.
CP Snax, a food kiosk owned by CPF, was opened at the Takashimaya department store in Singapore late last year.
Some projects to materialise this year include a chicken-burger production unit in the United Kingdom and the launch of ready-meals production in Australia and the United States.
"We are in talks with food packers in these two countries to process ready meals of popular Thai dishes such as Thai green curry and panang curry with rice," said Pisit Ohmpornnuwat, chief operating officer in charge of overseas trading.
For Australia, CPF wants to use local meat as raw material in making lamb green curry to be sold in the country while the company will take care of the Thai recipe and rice.
For the US, it will also approach Smithfield, a leading pork producer, for a business model.
"CPF has some shares in Smithfield and we think it's good to share food technologies," he said.
When the talks are completed, the products will be branded Kitchen Joy, which received good feedback in Scandinavian countries, garnering revenue of 500 million baht last year.
Cheap financing costs due to baht strength have driven several big Thai companies, especially the CP group, to acquire businesses abroad.
In November 2011, CPF completed a 66.3-billion-baht deal to acquire 74.18% of CPP, which has two main businesses _ animal feed production in China and integrated farm operations in Vietnam _ through CP Vietnam Corporation (CPV).
CP All Plc, in which CPF holds 30%, last week struck a 188.88-billion-baht deal to buy Siam Makro Plc, the operator Makro, the country's only cash-and-carry wholesale business.
Mr Pisit said as Makro, already one of CPF's clients, aims to expand into neighbouring countries, the takeover will benefit CPF's food sales.
CPF projects 40 billion baht in revenue from overseas markets this year, about 10% of total sales revenue.
Major contributors to overseas sales are cooked and semi-cooked products under CP and Kitchen Joy brands and some for original equipment manufacturers (OEM).
CPF plans to sell 160,000 tonnes of processed and raw chicken meat this year, up from 100,000 tonnes in 2012.
He attributed the increase to the European Union's lift of the import ban on raw chicken meat in mid-2012. Several buyers have followed the EU's move to resume the purchases of fresh chicken from Thailand after a long pause since 2004, when Thailand's poultry industry was hit by bird flu.
Europe is a major market where the company also planned investment for cold storage in the UK. After that, it plans to set up a chicken-burger plant at a cost of 2 million pounds.
Asia's strong economy led the firm to form a business partnership with E-Mart, the largest discount store chain in South Korea, last year.
The company is one of the main suppliers of products to Costco in the US, Woolworths and Coles in Australia, Carrefour and Auchan in France and E-Mart and Key Account in South Korea.
To promote brands and products, the company set up food kiosks. The first kiosk, CP Snax, is in the supermarket of Takashimaya department store in Singapore and the model will be used in CPF's 36 markets, said Mr Pisit. Two more offices are planned in potential markets such as China and Australia.