It is the ambition of Narit Vittayavarakorn, managing director of Thai Jintan Co, to make Jintan breath-freshener pills, once popular among Thais in days of yore, a household name among today's young people.
Thai Jintan, which distributes healthcare products from the 123-year-old Japanese brand, plans to expand aggressively next year and will for the first time invest millions of baht to jointly make Jintan products in Thailand with brand owner Morishita Jintan.
Founded in 1993, Thai Jintan, a subsidiary of Chumsang Group, is mostly known for selling Jintan red and silver breath-freshener pills.
The products were previously introduced to the Thai public by Japanese distributors who arrived in Thailand during the reign of King Rama V. But the pills were only known among elderly Thais as traditional, quasi-drug products serving as mouth fresheners and sore throat relievers that could be found at local chemists.
Football is one of Mr Narit's favourite sports.
That all changed after Mr Narit took charge of the family business, set up by his father Charnkij Vittayavarakorn in 2010.
Mr Narit, 31, says Thais are becoming more concerned about personal healthcare issues and he wants a larger group of consumers to recognise Thai Jintan as a company that sells innovative healthcare products from a technologically advanced Japanese company.
"There is a story to be told behind the long history of the Jintan brand as well as its technological advancements," he says. "So I thought, why not tell it?"
The Osaka-based Morishita Jintan is a maker of pharmaceutical products, functional foods and dietary supplements. It has been making and selling Jintan red and silver pills in Japan and other countries since its inception.
Each pill contains 16 herbal galenicals with a silver-finish coating for preservation. Based on the initial concept used to manufacture Jintan pills, the company later developed its patented, seamless capsule technology, which can encapsulate a wide range of materials and offer controlled release through the use of several types of dissolvable capsule shells.
Morishita Jintan uses its advanced capsule technology to develop unique oral hygiene products and dietary supplements for consumers. The technology also allows it to serve as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for many companies for pharmaceuticals, food products and other industries in the US and Europe.
"With this unique capsule technology, traditional products have developed into innovations," Mr Narit says. "I want Thai Jintan to be recognised as a company that brings innovative healthcare products from Japan to meet the lifestyle needs of younger Thais."
With that in mind, Thai Jintan has expanded its line of products to stomach aid pills, liquid toothpastes and supplements from its Japanese partner. The products can now be found at modern retail outlets.
Although the Jintan pills have been known among some Thais for decades, the company never spent money on marketing and advertising campaigns until last year, when Thai Jintan decided to invest 70 million baht to introduce Jintan products to more consumers (initially targeting first-jobbers), as well as create brand awareness.
An ad from a Japanese newspaper in 1910 expressing the company's honour to have discovered that King Rama V used Jintan's freshener pills regularly.
"Thai Jintan's revenue in the first half of 2016 grew 100% compared with last year," Mr Narit says. "The main reason is the launch and marketing of Nude liquid toothpaste and advertising campaigns across various media channels since late last year."
Earlier this month, Thai Jintan signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with longtime Japanese partner Morishita Jintan to expand business partnerships and opportunities in the Southeast Asian market.
The MoU focuses on joint investment to set up a factory in Thailand to produce Jintan products for export in the next 3-5 years. It also includes the promotion of Jintan products in Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia. Further details about the planned factory in Thailand have not been released, pending legal and budgetary discussions between the two sides.
"While Jintan products have innovations that rivals do not, the real challenge, even more than the issue of price, is making consumers understand the value of those innovations," Mr Narit says. "It is our goal is to make consumers think of Japanese quality and innovation when they think of Thai Jintan."
New and innovative products is essential to catch young generation.
He says he initially baulked at working at his father's company because he did not want other people to think he got the job simply because of his family connections.
"I loved football and wanted to be a professional player, so I asked my father to let me go study in England when I was 12," he recalls. "He allowed me to go, but on the condition that I had to return to Thailand to do a bachelor's degree here. His reason was that having friends and connections was important for doing business, so I should come back to study at a Thai university."
After he took charge of the business empire six years ago, his father gave him useful advice and demanded frequent reports on the overall outlook of the company.
"My father started from nothing" Mr Narit says. "He tried to make ends meet by selling lottery tickets when he was in Chon Buri. When he came to Bangkok he sold second-hand shoes. When I was born he was working hard to support our family.
Mr Narit (left), father Charnkij (centre) and brother Naret during a recent visit to Osaka-based Morishita Jintan.
"He taught me his motto: 'Virtue before profit.' One has to strictly hold on to their sense of integrity and tell the truth to customers. We have to create trust and credibility for both ourselves and business partners. If one can do that, business opportunities will follow."
The introduction of the Japanese breath-freshener pills to the Thai public can be traced back to the reign of King Rama V when Gunzo Yamaguchi, who was a distributor of the Jintan silver and red pills, joined local vendors in selling goods at a temple fair in Bangkok in 1910.
In a letter written to Hiroshi Morishita, the founder of Morishita Jintan, Yamaguchi said that the King, accompanied by his first and second queens and more than 100 subjects, visited the fair on the second day and stopped by his stall to buy a large quantity of Jintan pills. The monarch graciously told Yamaguchi that he regularly consumed the "Jintan osot" and liked it because it was good medicine.
Yamaguchi felt honoured to have an unexpected encounter with His Majesty and to hear the King's explicit admiration of the Jintan product. He then decided to write to Morishita to share the happy story with him.
A demonstration of how Jintan freshener pills are made at Morishita Jintan's Osaka laboratory.
The Osaka-based company later relayed Yamaguchi's account in an advertisement placed in a Japanese newspaper with the title pronouncing: "It is Jintan's highest honour that the King of Siam regularly uses its product."
Like other series of products, packaging items and advertising materials of different forms from the early days of the business, the company to this day carefully holds onto that advertisement as historical evidence of its presence in Siam. The ad is kept in a museum-like storeroom at its headquarters in order to cement proof of its long history in Thailand.
The distribution rights for the Jintan pills changed hands from the Japanese distributor to the Vittayavarakorn family in the early 1990s, all due to a close friendship and mutual trust between Charnkij Vittayavarakorn and a former Japanese army officer turned businessman.
Mr Charnkij says the Japanese man opened a company on Surawong Road in Bangkok to market the Jintan pills. That office, incidentally, was close to his place. He was running an electric appliance business at the time and didn't have the slightest interest in investing in Jintan.
A Jintan lab technician in Osaka demonstrates how the freshener pills are made.
Mr Charnkij lent a helping hand and provided advice to the foreign entrepreneur on business matters whenever he needed help. The two, needless to say, quickly became close friends. The Japanese businessman encouraged Mr Charnkij to become the distributor for the Jintan pills before he left Thailand when he was in his 70s.
"In 1991, he told me he was too old to continue and he appreciated that I had always supported him and given him advice," Mr Charnkij says. "He was confident that there was a future for the Jintan brand and he wanted me to continue his work."
Mr Charnkij set up Thai Jintan Co in 1993. The company started off selling Jintan's popular red and silver pills at local drugstores. Thai Jintan is one of the four international distributors for Morishita Jintan, though it is the only one allowed to use both the Jintan trademark and logo.
Thai Jintan exports Jintan products to more than 10 countries, including Singapore, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Belgium.
From vintage tin to more a modern packaging, it indicates the long history of Jintan's silver freshener pills in the Thai market.
The progression of vintage tins to modern packaging reflects the long history of Jintan's freshener pills in the Thai market.
Mr Narit relaxes in his office. He says Thai Jintan's revenue in the first half of 2016 doubled from last year's figure for the same period.
