After two years of product testing and tinkering, the small independent snack brand Fitto is finally starting to hit its stride, with 4 million baht in sales per month and distribution in convenience stores nationwide.
"My aim is to combine taste with health so our product is 100% whole grain, no cholesterol, no trans fat and only 90 calories," Thanunpatch Paiboonthanapark, founder of Fitto, said when describing her company's signature rice and corn pop chips.
The snack industry in Thailand is worth about 10 billion baht and for the most part is dominated by major brands. For instance, PepsiCo, owner of Lay's, controls about 80% of the market, Ms Thanunpatch said.
But through a combination of marketing and persistence, she has been drawing Thais away from major brands and into her healthy alternative. Her chips started out only being available at Lawson, followed by Family Mart, then eventually last October became available in 7-Elevens nationwide.
"We started only selling 100 packs per month at 100 Lawson stores," she said. "It was a very bad start and I felt the original recipe didn't have me feeling addicted to the product like I am with other snack foods."
Ms Thanunpatch got into the snack food business after her parents sold their bean sprout business and opened a rice meal factory. She wanted to add value to her parents rice meal by using it to make snacks, an area she was all too passionate about.
"I love snacks," she said. "I can eat five packs of Lay's potato chips a day."
After the relative failure of her first release, she spent the next two years in R&D, talking to food scientists and testing new recipes to get the pop chips crispier and the seasoning tastier.
"It was a tough time for my business, and my family was trying to push me to move on to something else," she said.
Once she settled on the right formula, her next challenge was marketing, specifically trying to sell a product as healthy without giving the impression that there were compromises in taste.
"Most SMEs don't know much about branding, and it's difficult to get your own brand to compete with big companies like Lay's," Ms Thanunpatch said.
She was able to use her know-how from the MBA she received in the US to push her products in stores across the country. While her product has nowhere near the name recognition of a Pringles, it's steadily catching on.
"The snack food business is a very competitive market, and it's hard for SMEs to break in," she said. "We're facing challenges moving forward with marketing and branding, but I think we've been pretty successful so far."
