Thailand suggested to become ASEAN hub of smart packaging

BANGKOK, February 1 (TNA) - Thailand has been urged to position itself as a hub of smart packaging in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in a bid to solve a regional challenge of limited shelf-life of food and beverage products. Speaking in Bangkok on Thursday at a seminar entitled “Active and Intelligent Packaging”, a key panelist, Associated Professor Dr. Panuwat Suppakul from the Faculty of Agro-Industry, Kasetsart University, acknowledged that ASEAN's trade liberalisation, once the ASEAN Community (AC) is formed by 2015, has prompted Thai manufacturers to consider applying smart packaging for their food and beverage products, as the advance technology appears to benefit the Thai businesses in many ways, ranging from making the Thai food and beverage products last longer, taste better to even alerting consumers when any ingredient goes bad. Panuwat recommended that Thai producers start apply the smart packaging innovation to high-priced food products, such as moon cake and natural flavor drinks, noting even though it is costly, it helps Thai food producers sustain brand royalty by consumers and high market shares in return. The Thai intelligent packaging expert also pointed out that Thailand has potential to become self-reliance on the smart packaging if both local public and private sectors more emphasize on research and development (R&D) projects to achieve less expensive packaging. According to the key panelist the development, if successful, could turn Thailand to become ASEAN's hub of intelligent packaging and save the 10-member bloc huge costs on know-how imported from outside Asia. Thursday's Active and Intelligent Packaging Seminar was organised as part of the Food Pack Asia 2013, a dynamic platform for regional food & beverage industrialists and professionals who are looking for quality suppliers, importers, exporters, distributors and manufacturers of food processing and packaging machinery and related products. (TNA)