Kacha Brothers Co, the food company owned by Safari World animal theme park, has added French-style pastries to its menu in a bid to strengthen its food venture before expanding abroad under the imminent Asean Economic Community.
Litti Kewkacha (left) and his brother Dej introduce French-style pastries, which will be available at Pastel food outlets.
Pastel, a specialty store for Gallic-style eclairs, was launched at Siam Paragon last week in an attempt to push the firm as Thailand's leading dessert company, said managing director Litti Kewkacha.
Pastel is the seventh food brand of Kacha Brothers, which also offers Sfree ice cream, Parferio, Aldy’s Coffee Lite, Kyo Roll En and Teraoka Gyoza.
The company plans to open a total of 10 Pastel shops by 2015, with estimated sales of 120 million baht.
Mr Litti said Kacha Brothers planned to spend 150 million baht to expand business this year by opening new food and dessert outlets as well as rebranding its Sfree and Sfree JR cafes.
A Japanese consultant firm was hired for the rebranding to prevent each brand from competing with each other while keeping the same standard of authentic Japanese dessert cafe.
At present, Sfree is a mass ice cream brand but will become a niche market brand focusing on the young generation after rebranding.
Next year, some food brands will be introduced to major tourism destinations such as Phuket, Pattaya and Chon Buri in order to widen the market base.
Mr Litti said the company also had ambitious plans to open dessert businesses in neighbouring countries after interest shown by local investors.
"For the Asean market, we're interested in Indonesia and Malaysia due to their high purchasing power as well as less competition in the dessert cafe business there," he said.
Mr Litti said international expansion would be carried out only if the firm had enough food brands in its portfolio.
Apart from the Pastel brand, Kacha Brothers plans to introduce more foreign food brands to the local market this year.
It will also open Kyo by Kyo Roll En on the fifth floor of Central Embassy shopping complex, which opens next month.
The company has seven food brands in 22 outlets, with sales reaching 180 million baht last year, up by 50% from 2012, thanks to the addition of two more food brands.
Under the expansion plans, sales are forecast to rise to 500 million baht by 2017, with the number of shops increasing by 50%.