After poring over researches on overseas organic dairy farms, Mr. Pruitti Kerdchoochuen – founder and managing director of Dairy Home Social Enterprise Company Limited – applied his knowledge to Thai context. He started encouraging local dairy farmers to embrace organic production in pursuit of high-quality milk that can be turned into 100 percent organic products. He has lately shared his experience, business philosophy, social-enterprise concept, and views about his business partner SCGP with a LOT.
IT TAKES TIME FOR ORGANIC-FARMING SEED TO GROW
“In the beginning, we faced so many challenges. Our Learning Curve climbed up at the time no one else had tried organic farming here before. Dairy farms back then had a long value chain. Farmers did not produce all production factors. They relied on materials from various sources. In the past, dairy farms focused on quantity with every cow pressured to produce as much milk as possible. But today, our dairy farms just aim to produce an appropriate volume. Because dairy farmers can now produce proper food for cows themselves, cost is lower. Gross profit margin therefore rises. We are in no rush. Real impacts will be seen after 10 years. We understand that and we will not try to cite big profits as a motivation for farmers to switch to organic approach.
“The number of our organic farms has already risen from one to 30 today. During our journey, we have also worked with other types of organic farms. We have supported one another.”
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
Dairy Home’s social-enterprise business model was shaped by interesting goals – the production of chemical-free quality milk for consumers, the sustainability of farmers’ livelihoods, and the reduction of farming’s environmental impacts.
“Our business is a social enterprise. We take care of not just our business but also communities, society, and the environment. All stakeholders must benefit from our operations. I think a business exists to solve a problem or create a good thing. The sustainability of a business therefore depends on the benefits it delivers to consumers, communities, and the environment. Today, a business must engage all sides as stakeholders including employees, vendors, the environment, and communities.
“Presently, Dairy Home has three main product categories: 1) Ready-to-Drink Milk, 2) Yogurt, and 3) Milk Tablets and other products. We have not conducted many marketing activities for our products because we believe a product should be able to stay on in the market on its own via consumers’ word of mouth. It must not rely on just advertisements.
“In support of our continued growth, we have prepared solid plans for all parts of operations namely raw materials, demand forecast, our team’s abilities, and our plant’s capacity.
For instance, when COVID-19 outbreak forced so many people to spend more time at home, we launched products and marketing campaigns targeting these people. Our sales thus soared. Aside, we have attracted an increasing number of certified organic farmers and therefore been able to boost our capacity. On research and development, we have conducted researches in collaboration with several universities and we will continue to do so in the future so that we can constantly roll out new products in response to customers’ needs.”
PARTNERSHIP WITH SCGP, THE PROFESSIONAL SOLUTIONS PROVIDER
“Printing on yogurt cups used to be our pain point. While yogurt has been our major product, we have produced it in more than 10 flavors. So, the volume for each flavor is not big. Yogurt, with its short shelf life, cannot be produced in a large volume either. In the past, our staff had to manually affix flavor label on every cup. This task was quite difficult too because the body of the cup was round. Placing the label on the lid, meanwhile, would not work because lid space was too small and there would be too much white space on the cup in the eyes of consumers.
“SCGP has practically removed our pain point. Its prints for our yogurt cup are of high quality. All letters are very clear. They look nice on shelves too. SCGP has provided us with what we had long been looking for. With SCGP support, it becomes easier for our customers to choose the product from shelves. Also, our staff work more conveniently as they do not need to affix labels manually anymore. SCGP has impressed us very much. It has clear work process. Every step – be it design presentation, quotation, or prototype development – is truly professional. Work flows so smoothly with SCGP as our partner. SCGP has answered well to our needs. Not only that SCGP delivers quality, but its output really resonates with our concept.
“Today, Dairy Home also uses SCGP’s corrugated boxes. In the future, we expect to get great packaging for various other products probably ice-cream cups, milk-tablet packets or boxes from SCGP too,” Mr. Pruitti concluded