Buono has a strong focus on non-meat analogue plant-based products, and is particularly well-known for its fruit-flavoured ice creams and other frozen desserts.
The firm has now set its sights on innovating based on Thailand’s strong street snacks culture, and to maximise the potential of this venture it has underlined a strong focus on maintaining the authenticity of these creations.
“Authenticity is very crucial when focusing on these products because Thailand’s street food and snacks culture is very strong, so many consumers both local and international are familiar with these,” Buono Assistant CEO Bee Suparavarasuwat told FoodNavigator-Asia in the latest edition of our FNA InnovATE video series.
“Our first creation in this range has been frozen ready-to-heat Thai coconut pancakes Kanom Krok, a street food that every Thai consumer knows.
“The whole idea is that these are sold frozen and only need to be popped into an air fryer or microwave oven for a few minutes, then are immediately ready for consumption, as opposed to having to get a pan and rice and coconut milk and other ingredients ready.
“More importantly, Kanom Krok is acknowledged as a dish that even Thai consumers find difficult to make at home, so having this as an RTH version allows them to have that authentic taste at home too.
“We are also seeing good response from Thai consumers that are located in other international markets and missing street foods at home, and again authenticity comes strongly into play here as they would be willing to pay for something that tastes as close to what they miss as possible.”
Buono does not operate in the plant-based meat and so has been less affected by the challenges hitting that sector, and Suparavarasuwat is keen to ensure that the company’s focus remains zeroed in on ingredients and taste quality.
“We can see that the hype that hit the plant-based meat sector previously has hit a plateau, and think that this is the time for the plant-based sector as a whole to recentre focus on areas such as ingredient and taste,” she said.
“For us, we use a lot of local ingredients such as coconut, taro and various fruits, and find that there is enough of such great tasting items to work with to create even greater-tasting products – and this year the focus is definitely here too.
“There is also a lot of demand for exotic fruit flavours such as passion fruit and guava, which we are seeing reflected in orders for our ice creams – so fruit-based innovation is also an area that has a lot of potential for development in this space.
Watch the video above to find out more.
