Yakult Thailand's octogenarian founder has named his youngest daughter as the new president of the 45-year-old company.
Kanokpan Hetrakul's appointment at Thailand's leading yoghurt drink company came with a vow to keep the company ahead in the multibillion-baht market and boost its daily sales by 40% in a year.
Prapan Hetrakul, the 83-year-old pioneer of the beverage in Thailand and a former editor-in-chief of the Thai-language Daily News, told the annual meeting of sales representatives and distribution agents that it was time for him to step down and pass on the company to Ms Kanokpan, 43, who joined the company 14 years ago.
"I have been through happiness and sorrow with you, Yakult girls, for the past 45 years. It's now time for me to step down and pass the company to Khun Bow," a frail-looking Mr Prapan said in a shaking voice to the crowd, referring to Ms Kanokpan by her nickname.
"May I leave Khun Bow in everyone's good care? She will carry on my duty of looking after every Yakult girl just like I have done. If you miss me, consult her."
Some of the 2,000-strong Yakult sales promoters, all clad in evening gowns, cried as Mr Prapan spoke.
New Yakult Thailand president Kanokpan Hetrakul with her father Prapan, the founder of the company, at its annual meeting of sales representatives. YAKULT THAILAND
Mr Prapan, who felt the benefits of Yakult's bacteria for his digestive system when he was a student in Japan in the early 1950s, started Yakult Thailand in 1971 from his father's investment with a 15% stake in a Thai-Japanese venture with registered capital of 15 million baht.
Today he and his children are major shareholders of the group, which consists of a production unit, Yakult (Thailand), and a sales unit, Yakult Sales (Bangkok) Co.
In the first couple of years with 80 sales girls and net losses, Mr Prapan struggled to convince Thais that the sweet and sour milk with lactobacillus bacteria in the tiny hour-glass plastic bottle was not spoiled milk but beneficial to people's digestive systems. He also spent his evenings running the newsroom at Daily News, the daily his father Sang Hetrakul founded.
For its 2013 financial year ending in May 2014, the group's combined sales were worth 6.4 billion baht with a net profit of 1.14 billion baht.
Yakult Thailand's sales volume ranked fourth among the 33 countries where the Japanese drink maker operates, after Japan, South Korea and China.
Ms Kanokpan is looking to boost its daily sales to 5 million bottles per day by next year from 3.5 million now. Its sales are mainly based on its 3,500 sales girls nationwide, and it is looking for new recruits.
"With the strong support our Yakult girls have lent to my dad, I hope we can raise our sales to 5 million bottles a day by the end of 2016," Ms Kanokpan told the Bangkok Post after her father's announcement.
Ms Kanokpan, who was fed with a teaspoon of the yoghurt each day by her father when she was a child, is not a new face at Yakult Thailand. Thailand Tatler's 2008 Most Eligible Bachelorette award winner joined the dairy firm in 2001 after a five-year stint in the US working for an advertising agency and a magazine.
With her father's permission, she started as a Yakult girl in Bangkok's Phaya Thai district for seven months. Later she was appointed as a group director and was managing director of Yakult Sales for 10 years before being promoted to the presidency.
As Yakult shunned most modern trade outlets and stuck with its female sales team, rivals chose to distribute through major supermarkets and convenience stores. But Yakult now has its drink available in 7-Eleven stores in several provinces except Bangkok to appeal to younger customers.
A report by the state National Food Institute in February 2014 said yoghurt and drinking yoghurt enjoyed a constant annual growth rate of 5%, with 2013 sales value of 18.1 billion baht for drinking yoghurt and 3.7 billion baht for the former. Dutch Mill and Yakult are the two major players in the market with 27% and 26% shares, respectively.
Yakult, which has hardly spent on advertising, aims to expand sales with new products, more distribution channels and more marketing activities.
"From Monday, shall we happily work harder to reach 10 million bottles a day? Let's make this promise with the man we love, Khun Prapan," Ms Kanokpan told the cheering crowd of Yakult girls.