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Boon Rawd to Push Non-Alcoholic Drinks

Posted on: Thursday, 1 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 1--Boon Rawd Brewery Co, the producer of Singha, and Leo beer, plans to focus more on non-alcoholic drinks with an aim to be develop an image as a total beverage firm and offset slowing alcohol sales.

With the beer and whisky market only growing about 2-3 percent annually, the 72-year-old company has decided to seek a new business focus, according to Piti Bhiromphakdi, advertising manager of Boon Rawd Trading Co, the company's marketing arm.

"Given our move into producing other beverage drinks, Boon Rawd's will be seen as a fully integrated beverage drinks company instead of just being the producer and distributor of Singha, Tai, and Leo beer," he said.

Under this new strategy, the company will focus more on introducing healthy products in the market.

This was prompted by a survey taken by Boon Rawd that showed that interest among consumers in this product segment was growing.

In the first step of the plan, the company launched bottled Moshi green tea three months ago. It next plans to promote Singha soda in a new effort to expand the product's customer base.

"This is the first time in more than 70 years that the company will promote our soda brand aggressively in the market," Mr Piti said.

Currently, the soda market is worth about seven billion baht. Of that amount, 95 percent of the soda consumed is used to mix with whisky. Singha soda claims have more than a 90 percent share of the market.

But Mr Piti said soda consumption was not only intended to be used as a mixer for whisky, but also can be mixed with fruit juice.

As a result, the firm will spend 50 million baht on promoting its soda brand this year, in a campaign called "Mix Za Soda Singha".

Mr Piti said the company's drive to push sales of Singha soda should boost the market by 25-30 percent by the end of this year.

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Source: Bangkok Post

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