Cupboard dynasties

A nose for business

For the fourth time during the interview, Bunjua Eiampikul, 82, emphasises: "In one's life, having a good partner already ensures you 50% of the success."

Every time the subject of his late wife comes up, he makes sure to repeat, "You must find a good partner!", before launching into the Thai elephant analogy — yes, the one about the woman being the supporting hinds legs and all that.

It's understandable why Bunjua's wife was such a pivotal figure in his life. Without her, Siang Pure Oil, a herbal oil brand which celebrates its 57th anniversary this year, may never have been born.

Life isn't often easy for Chinese immigrants, especially in the case of Bunjua and his wife, who hawked chillies, oranges and pineapples, drove taxis and oversaw a mill's operations before making medicine for a living.

Acquiring the formula for the herbal oil wasn't easy. Bunjua was working for a master, a reclusive relative who knew the oil's formula but who never fully divulged it for fear of being deserted if Bunjua obtained his prized knowledge.

Yet Bunjua persevered, eventually learning the recipe, and his hard-working spirit finally bore fruit in the form of a little bottle of nasal congestion-clearing wonder that Thais have used for over half a century.

Back then, the herbal oil was a traditional Chinese medicine which the Thai market had never seen before — it was, in other words, hard to sell.

"No pharmacies would buy my oil, nor sell it for me," he recalls. "I was stuck because I couldn't progress, but I couldn't step back either."

Giving up would also mean having to throw out the bottles he'd ordered — a pile of which filled up half of their 12m by 4m house. Although disheartened, his wife encouraged him to keep trying, so whenever he had free time or a temple fair came around, Bunjua would be off with his little suitcase, carrying his painstakingly made oil to sell — or even give away.

"It embodied a true essence of quality, which is advertising in itself," he says. "Satisfied customers will spread the word about it if it is truly good and also because advertisements weren't so restrictive then. Anything was possible and it went well from there."

Bunjua's three daughters spearhead the business today, and Suwanna Eiampikul, the current CEO, fondly remembers the joys (and pains) of returning to work in a family business venture with certain Chinese values.

"When I first came back to work at home, it was just me, my sister and dad. After me, there was just the cleaning lady," she says, laughing. "And when you're the youngest sister, it's something you are all your life — you must always respect your elder siblings because it's not a role you can just not be anymore. That's what we've always been taught."

Siang Pure Oil may risk becoming archaic for future generations, but Suwanna is still proud that it is still around the country and that kids today know what it is, even if they don't use it.

"The grandpa logo on the box is an old man, but he's a friendly and approachable one, which is something people may feel elders are not," she says. "I'm happy people still haven't forgotten about him."

After years of attempting to expand the demographics of a product which mainly appealed to elderly Thai-Chinese, Bertram Chemical, Siang Pure Oil's mother company, now produces Peppermint Field balms and gels, which are more contemporary and attract a younger customer base. Suwanna says Bertram Park, a space for alternative sports, will soon open as the brand moves toward sports marketing to ensure its survival.

"It's so easy [for the business] to fall apart by simply not doing anything," she says. "Any wrong step can bring it down, and sometimes this is harder than starting out with nothing. Sports are our universal 'cool' that will help us in this new age of marketing."

Hirun Sanghirun, Bunjua's grandson who has stepped in to look over business development, says "going with the flow" is an attitude one cannot take with family businesses.

"I've always kept it in mind that I won't treat it as a family business — that it simply survives isn't enough. I feel that I need to be better and smarter every day and the company needs to gain something from me, too, because it's not just mine, it's something my grandpa, mother and aunts built up."

The spice of life

Even if you don't launch into a sneezing fit upon entering the grounds of the Nguan Soon factory in Suksawad — which produces one of Southeast Asia's oldest pepper brands — the intense peppery aroma could make you feel slightly disorientated. Visit Limprana, CEO and chairman of Nguan Soon, established in 1948, knowingly laughs.

"It's not like it's a chemical smell — it's all natural. Just think of it as an inhaler," he says.

Visit's father, the late Artchit, is the founder of Nguan Soon Hand Brand No. 1 pepper, which most of us have in our kitchens today. As a Thai-Chinese family living in Yaowarat, Visit recalls how his father was surrounded by food sellers and how pepper was sold in large bulky sacks. That was how the idea came to him.

"No one really sold pepper in small portions, so my father thought of selling to those who didn't want to buy the whole sack. He divided the pepper into small bags and he'd walk around selling it with a basket on his shoulders," Visit says.

There were no malls back then — the main selling spots were usually temple fairs and Sanam Luang until Artchit found a stand for rent in front of a store on Issaranuparp Lane in Yaowarat. Years later, when the store owner put the store up for sale, Artchit bought the place and made it his storefront.

"Father then bought a grinding machine so people could see how pepper was ground," Visit says. "It's still there today, grinding pepper just the way coffee is ground. It was a good selling point."

Pepper became a part of Visit's family life. He recalls a childhood of napping on pepper sacks after school in their small, crowded townhouse store.

"I would know without even opening the bag whether I was sleeping on a bag of white or black pepper because the texture on my back felt different."

He adds, "The smell is something I smelled every day, too, and it's seeped into me since then. I could tell the difference and when we went out to eat, I could tell immediately what spices went in."

A discerning tongue is a side product of his job, but his ability to judge raw materials is Visit's most valuable skill. He admits that his father fumbled his way through the spice business for many years before finally obtaining the proper knowledge — how to properly preserve pepper to prevent rot and hardening, for example.

"When we went to buy pepper, we obviously couldn't carry the scale with us to measure what moisture percentage it had," Visit explains. "Another way to find out is to bite into it and if it's flimsy, then we would know to bargain for more. Something like this is experience you'd pick up only after biting over 1,000 seeds."

Nguan Soon's business has progressed from a small Chinatown store, where workers didn't even wear caps, into an exporter of over 200 packed spices to over 20 countries, with a team of food scientists and quality controllers. Workers are now covered from head to toe as they work, only their eyes visible.

Visit acknowledges that they are lucky to work with such a timeless product.

"Our new trend is moving towards ready-to-mix [products], such as somtam or curry powder, because it's more convenient for Thai students studying abroad or foreigners. However, spice is thousands of years old and people are moving back to nature today, where they don't want artificial taste anymore. The growing popularity of Thai food has also has contributed to the survival of spices."

Visit's generation was more about retailing in fresh markets and supermarkets, but the vision he's set for his sons, who work with him, is to open outlets in malls and abroad. This has already happened in Siam Paragon, with Spice Story, which sells over 200 varieties of spices in small packages fit for gifting, souvenirs or personal use.

"I actually went to take a short course about family businesses — how to prepare for successors and what must be done," he says. "A leader must create opportunities for them, so they see that there's still a way. If you lead the way for them to grow, they are more likely to take up the business than

Savoury smell of success

The way tycoons weather obstacles and use different tactics to reach success has changed over the eras. But the one phrase they live by has remained forever constant: Do something someone else hasn't.

That's exactly what Puem Morin, the late founder of pork savoury brand Chao Sua (formerly known as Tia Ngee Hiang), did. As a Chinese immigrant in Bangkok who toiled in whatever odd jobs he could get, Puem eventually came to the conclusion that being an employee was all that awaited him in the city. With so many people already trying their hand at entrepreneurship, moving to Korat, where less competition and a bounty of raw pork supply beckoned, seemed more and more appealing.

Puem acknowledged there was already an abundance of raw pork in the market and decided to alter its form, which led to the start of producing and selling kun chiang (Chinese sausage), moo yong (pork floss) and moo pan (crispy pork).

In its humble beginnings, these pork-based savouries were sold at fresh markets and bus stations, but their popularity quickly grew and a walk-in store was opened in 1973. The products became sought after — moo pan was luxurious, expensive and hard to find. Tia Ngee Hiang products eventually became a symbol of Korat holidays. Visitors in the province made sure to stop by for a share of moo pan and kun chiang.

In retrospect, Napatr Morin, Puem's granddaughter, reckons it is the product's marketing — which has existed since day one — that has led to such a favourable outcome. Napatr has taken over the 56-year-old business and is now the company's director of sales and marketing.

"As I look back, I see that there's always been a brand and our products weren't just sold in a mere plastic baggie," she says. "There might have been others who made processed pork products before us, but we were the very first ones who gave it a tangible verbal value. I still remember the slogan on both the packages and store signs in the old days — 'King of Moo Pan' — and a guy that flew all the way from Hong Kong who tried to track us down with the telephone number and address on the paper label. Someone had gifted him with our pork floss rice crackers and he wanted to bring it back to sell in Hong Kong."

The delightfully crispy pork floss rice crackers began being manufactured in 1991. From then on, Chao Sua became the brand's new name, as it was easier to pronounce and remember. People sought the delectable snack, which was convenient for consumption anywhere and any time. Since its inception, the business has doubled in size. Handfuls of lookalikes and copycats have popped up, attempting to grab a share of the market, but for Napatr, this pushes her company to keep developing.

"We keep walking so we can be ahead, because there's obviously people following us. The only good point is it tells us we're good enough and people want to be us, but we want customers to know what the real, original thing really is," she says.

While Napatr and her four siblings no longer have to get up at four to go to work as her father and grandfather did, they must manage a lifestyle of travelling between Korat and Bangkok every three days to oversee work at both head offices.

Nevertheless, it's far from a hassle or a bore, and being a country girl who attended school in Bangkok, Napatr is used to the double life, with summers spent selling products back home.

"Working with your siblings is actually a good thing, because I feel I can trust them more to get things done. My parents never forced us to take this up. We all came back ourselves when the time was right," she says.

"I guess I've always felt close and involved with it because when I was young, I used to run around in the factory — the workers were like family and I loved to tag along when we went to deliver stuff. It must be because I grew up seeing my parents as their own bosses and having flexibility, which just seemed much more fun than an office job."