6 July 2007 - The international co-operative dairy company Campina, and Thai Advanced Food, a leading Thai company active in cultured yoghurts and drinks under the Betagen-brand, announce that they have set up a new joint venture in Thailand, which has become effective as of 2nd July 2007.
Both companies are convinced that by teaming up and sharing each others resources and know-how, further accelerated profitable growth can be realized in the promising market segment of health related products, both in Thailand as in surrounding countries.
The joint venture will have approximately 600 employees. With a joined turnover of approximately EUR 60 million it will contribute considerably to Campina’s turnover in Asia. The activities of the joint venture will be the production of cultured yoghurt and yoghurt drinks, as well as marketing, sales and logistics.
For Campina this joint venture fits very well in its strategic ambition to expand its international business in the area of healthy products, particularly via yoghurts and drinks. In many Western European markets Campina is a successful player with its yoghurts, yoghurt drinks and low fat concepts, which are mainly marketed under the Campina brand, such as Campina Optimel/Optiwell and Campina Vifit (The Netherlands, Germany) and Campina Fruttis (Russia). With these products Campina aims to satisfy the growing demand of more health conscious consumers. The Campina Innovation centre, in Wageningen Food Valley (The Netherlands), is best equipped to develop new health related products, fitting this new and promising market segment.
For Thai Advanced Foods, headquartered in Bangkok, the partnership with Campina creates many new opportunities, in particular by getting access to state-of-the-art knowledge and competences in research and development, technology and marketing.
In order to be able to focus on growth in cultured yoghurt and yoghurt drinks Campina has decided to stop its production and sales activities of primarily private label milk in Thailand. Due to this decision Campina has finished its joint-venture with Thai Dairy Industries on producing these products.