Bangkok-based fresh produce provider Freshket was founded in 2017, aiming to simplify the delivery process of a range of essential food items from farms to tables.
The chief executive officer of Freshket, Ponglada Paniangwet and the chief marketing officer Tuangploi Chiwalaksanangkoon, co-founded and launched the delivery app, drawing on their knowledge and experience in marketing and tech.
The startup’s technology includes an e-commerce marketplace to connect farmers and food processors with Thailand’s businesses, restaurants and consumers. According to Miss Paniangwet, its goal is to become “an enabler for the entire food supply chain.”
Ms. Paniangwet revealed that her family had worked in the agriculture business for 25 years and encouraged her to enter Agritech. “I grew up learning a lot about what worked and didn’t work in the industry. Overall, the industry is tedious, messy and highly manual,” she explained.
Before Freshket, Ms. Paniangwet started a processing center, where she came to realize that technology could be used to simplify the supply chain, increasing products’ quality for consumers and farmers’ earnings.
Miss Chiwalaksanangkoon, who previously worked at one of Thailand’s largest banks, left her job to support her good friend Ms. Paniangwet and co-found Freshket.
The company’s platform was developed from the idea of achieving one specific goal: to unite Thailand’s fragmented produce supply chain, by bringing together the processing centers and suppliers and connecting them directly with farmers.
Moreover, it provides updated information to those involved in agricultural industries, to assist them in predicting supply and demand for their crops.
Operating a delivery business involves high expenses, especially if there are perishable goods involved. However, as a method of staying cost-efficient, Freshket does not stock fresh goods but tells its farmers’ network how much produce they need to provide daily, allowing them to plan their supply chains in advance.
Ms. Paniangwet believes that Freshket’s order, warehouse and logistics management systems are interconnected: “Because of that, we are able to control the flow of goods, limit labor costs and keep our overall cost base manageable,” she added.
In the B2B space, the company is challenged by traditional supply chains. Also, in the consumer space, there is stiff competition from grocery delivery platforms.
With its optimized supply chain, Freshket competes with their rivals by selling at lower retail prices and their B2B customers are also able to enjoy more precise deliveries, better product classifications, as well as a superior selection of food necessities.
Freshket has proven to be a very innovative and useful service in the local application sphere since it launched, creating considerable buzz as Thailand works towards driving digital transformation to reposition itself as an economic powerhouse.
