Seeds of a New Business Model: Organic Thai Rice

Business executive Peetachai Dejkraisak leads a new company that aims to promote organic Thai rice, sustainability and corporate responsibility

Peetachai Dejkraisak, the CEO of Siam Organic Co and a second year student at Sasin's MBA programme, recently led a team of four students from Sasin Graduate School at Chulalongkorn University to first prize in the top Bangkok Business Challenge competition beating 65 teams from 21 countries. As the winner of the competition, Siam Organic's business plan focuses on promoting its "jasberry" brand of nutritious, healthy and certified organic rice. Jasberry is a blend of Thailand's renowned Jasmine fragrant rice and berries, which have a high antioxidant content. 

"We have Bt1-million registered capital focussing on the marketing and exporting of this special rice variety. Our product is certified as 100 per cent organic. "With a fully-integrated supply chain, we aim to access consumers worldwide and develop one a premium branded organic rice from Thailand. "We are also seeking fresh funds to further expand our business, which is ahead of the competition in terms of product readiness," says Peetachai.

Siam Organic will first tap into US consumers who are health conscious. A recent online survey shows that consumers are prepared to pay a slightly higher price of, say, US$10 (Bt305), per kilogram for premier organic rice. Most buying decisions are made by women and housewives who want their kids to consume organic rice at least once a week.

Key factors (USPs) are nutritional value, taste and price. In terms of nutrition, "jasberry" rice has more antioxidants than blueberry or green tea, while its taste and after-taste suit many US consumers. In addition, the rice has less sugar content compared to white rice and other rice in general.

In terms of social responsibility, he says, the production of "jasberry" is friendly to the environment because no chemical pesticides or fertilisers are used, so it helps protect the eco-system.

The use of organic fertilisers and pesticides also lowers the farmers' production costs, resulting in better income for them.

According to Peetachai, chemicals and seeds generally account for 70 per cent of farmers' production costs, resulting in a vicious cycle of farmers' indebtedness.

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