Cheese And Chips

[teletiger]

Is cheese made in Thailand? The only cheese I see sold in thailand is imported.

Potatoes, can they be grown in Thailand? Only ones I ever see are imported 35/40 Baht per kilo and all Thais that I know in England love chips Any other products?

Regards

[RamdomChances]

Cheese is made in thailand, I've seen a small company in Chiang Mai, making Motzarella and I think some others. I'm sure I read that the Pizza Company is the biggest cheese maker here, although it uses it all.

Potatos are grown usually "up north"

[Maizefarmer]

Potatoes are a relatively new crop in Thailand - and only started to be grown as a commercial crop from around 2002 onwards.

99% of the potatoes grown are of one variety and go into the potato chip (as in "crisp") market.

Most are grown in the Chang Rai and Chang Mai region (the only region any good for growing potatoes in Thailand).

The seed potatoes are given to hill farmers who then grow the potatos and get paid for growing them. There are also a few very big farms where you can find Grimme Potato Harvesting machines, but most are grown by hill farmers.

Like the milk market the potato market is very "political" with both the seed stock and the prices artificialy controlled by a few dominanting parties.

Dont even think of growing it as a crop unless you live in the Chang Mai or Chang Rai region and are prepared to have your hands tied behind your back by tyhe seed potatoe supplier.

Tim

[teletiger]

Well, I'll be trying a few tubs of spuds (maybe more ) this winter, for personal use.

Now, you two dairy farmers......never thought about cheese? or do I have to make my own cheddar

Regards.

[Maizefarmer]

Well, I'll be trying a few tubs of spuds (maybe more ) this winter, for personal use.

Now, you two dairy farmers......never thought about cheese? or do I have to make my own cheddar

Regards.

I thought about trying to make motzerella using buffalo a few years back. Its a "niche" market product, labour intensive and I could nt get the figures to make sense so decided not to pursue it past the theory stage.

AS for other cheeses - well it is made here. Kraft Foods turns the stuff out by the ton, and so does Bill Heinike for his pizza resturants, but is that what you call cheese??

It is bulk processed using quick turn-around factory processing of dairy products and other than for been used on pizza's or as an ingredient in other processed foods, as a stand alone cheese product it would not be something you'd want to buy as a "cheese" to have with your crackers and biscuits.

Basically, like all dairy products in Thailand the market is limited, and secondly the conditions are not condusive to manufcturing cheese - they have to be artificialy created to make many of the different types of cheeses which pushes the price up for a product for which to start with, other than for its usage on pizza's and in processed food, there iusn't much of a market for.

BUT - as a result of the success of pizza's - the cheese market is growing at 14% per annum.

Tim

[bina]

i promise u that if i ever get to do mly goat farm in thailand, i will do cheeses (the soft kind, like salty bulgarian, and other middle east ethnic types that dont involve rennet and molds).... but very tasty, i do my own for the family... do a good riccotta type that works great in lasagne...

tried to give boyfreind taste of what we call 'white cheeses' (the soft squishy types), he turned green, pretty much like i do when having to deal with raa plaa --yuck yuck...

[chownah]

My wife says that potatoes have been sold in local markets up here in the north ever since she was a girl.....which is way way before 2002 so I think that potatoes have been a commercial crop in Thailand for quite awhile...at least in the north. If you want to grow them commercially it should be no problems to get seed potatoes....just buy some at the market and use them....they were probably grown locally and so they are probably the best seed available for your location although maybe this is only true for the north. My wife says that the mountain people grow and eat potatoes and we are both reasonably sure that they don't buy their seed from some large potato growing company.

Chownah

Edited October 24, 2006 by chownah

[Maizefarmer]

Yes - you could buy potatoes here in the 1800's on the local market - long before your other half was a youngster

Perhaps I should have said "cash crop" as opposed to "commercial crop".

Interestingly in the 60's the total Thai production was something like 1000 - 1200 tons. It then dropped to something like 200 - 300 tons in the 80's and 90's.

It's since Minor Group and Berli Jucker started producing crisps here (as opposed to having most of them imported) with the developement of Dutch and Spunta seed stock that it is not only grown as a "cash crop" on small fields, but as a commercial crop for processed food production - which it never used to be. That is what I meant by commercial crop.

Tim

[chownah]

Yes, potatoes have been a cash crop since a long time but mostly on a small scale. It has only been an agro-industrial crop for a short while. I know of a foreigner who grows potatoes in Chiangrai province in the lowland...I haven't seen his setup but he described it as being beds that are raised up a bit...I have tasted his product cooked into German style potato salad and it was absolutely delightful. My wife has incorporated potatoes into a traditional northern dish called geng hang lay and its quite good too. Thai potatoes are surprisingly good as new potatoes but I have never seen a russett or baker type potato in Thailand.

Chownah

[Maizefarmer]

You won't - they are grown under contract by hill farmers who get given the seed stock to grow exclusively for potatoe crisp production - they are specifically prohibated from selling their produce in local markets. If they do they are not given seed stock for the following year.

Burli Jucker and Minor Group and have come in for critism for "forcing" hill farmers to accept contractual terms that in effect amount market domination to price control.

[chownah]

What I think is a very very good link about potatoes in Thailand from history to locations and methods:

http://research.cip.cgiar.org/confluence/d...ay/wpa/Thailand

Chownah

[Maizefarmer]

Interesting - except that the referances on which it is based are all 20 years or older (70's and early 80's).

That artical makes the point that it was very much a "cash crop" in those days produced mainly to satisfy the tatses of foreigners, resturanst and hotels. Today the overwhelming bulk of production goes into making Thai kids fat (potatoe crisps).

I tried once to grow about half a rai - thinking that if sweet potatoes could be grown along with cassava to be chipped and dried, then so could potatoes.

It was a hopeless faliure. They have a very specific water/soil/climate combination requirement which is quite impossible to replicate in Isaan.

I have some bumpf lying around that was printed up in 2002 by Burli Jucker which is a "how to" guide that was laid out for hill farmers who joined up to their potatoe growing project. I'll find it and attach ti for al interested to read.

But if you are not in the Chang Mai/Rai region - forget it, its not a crop that youre going to be able to grow. Pity because, there a shoratge of them every year - and potatoes are still imported by the crisp manufacturers. Not a cheap ag crop to transport - its heavy.

Tim

[chownah]

If someone really wants to get into large scale potato production and find they can't access seed in Thailand then the following is a link which tells about some requirements for importing some seed stock from Australia from an area where growing seed for export to Thailand has already been established:

http://www.aqis.gov.au/PhytoPublish/Restri...%20Protocol.doc