As raw material prices continue to increase, Sea Wealth Frozen Food Co. Vice President Vichittra Aramwattananont told SeafoodSource the Bangkok, Thailand-based company sees value-added products as the key to continued sales growth.
Sea Wealth is a part of the Bangkok-based Wales Group, a manufacturer of frozen seafood, value-added, and ready-to-eat products including seafood, chicken, and plant-based products. The company’s main business is seafood, mainly shrimp and squid, and it has a total of three factories.
“We are doing a diversified type of products,” Sea Wealth Marketing Director Wannasiri Laosirichon told SeafoodSource.
One of the most popular products, Laosirichon said, is appetizers and snacks inspired by Asian cuisine, in the dim sum category.
“I would call it snacks, like Asian appetizer snacks, which is one of the best-selling products,” she said. “With the COVID situation, people cannot travel to Asia. That has made it so our snacks have been quite well-received – things like example our spring rolls, gyoza, those kinds of things.”
According to Aramwattananont, the company recognized the need to diversify from solely producing and processing raw material-style products, and has continued to innovate into new product formats.
“The cheap products, raw materials, is quite limited day-by-day,” she said. “That’s why our company is diversified with more value-added products.”
A key advantage, Aramwattananont added, is the ability for the company’s factories to cater its production to a customer’s needs.
“The strength of our factory is that we can do both handmade and machine made,” she said. “It’s very popular in Europe, they love the appetizers.”
In addition to appetizers, the company has created a number of ready-to-eat meal packs that can be quickly thrown into the microwave or prepared on a stove within juts a few minutes.
The overall goal, Laosirichon said, is to continue to be a market leader in innovating new products in the category.
“Our company philosophy, and our core value, is to be the innovative market leader. So we try to really provide value,” she said.
Photo by Chris Chase/SeafoodSource
