Siam Modified Starch
LOCATION: Pakham, Buriram
ESTABLISHED: 1985
MORE FROM LESS: THE MIRACLE OF A PLENTIFUL CROP
Biomaterial company Siam Modified Starch (SMS) is a powerful illustration of the potential of the BCG strategy on many levels. This company creates high value-added goods by transforming one of the country’s most important cash crops, cassava, into modified tapioca starch: a versatile biomaterial that, through applied innovation and expertise, can be used in many industrial and consumer products. Besides providing solutions for the food, paper, textiles, glue and construction sectors, SMS’s three plants are also focusing on environmental considerations and resource efficiency.
In the eyes of the average person, starch has an image problem. A vital component of the human diet, this complex carbohydrate seems unexciting: an odorless, tasteless white plant extract best used to make bland, unexciting foods or stiffen shirts. The reality is, however, that companies all over the world are continuously finding all manner of ingenious new use cases and exciting practical applications for starch.
Siam Modified Starch (SMS) is one of several companies at the vanguard of this plant-based industry, a Thai leader exploring and realizing starch’s potential—in line with sustainability principles and the BCG strategy—by creating high value-added, starch-based products. Producing around 250,000 tonnes of modified tapioca starch per year, the majority of which is exported, this joint venture has, over two decades, become a leader in its field through a diverse portfolio of innovative products, from foods with an ‘indulgent texture’ to coated paper, from textiles to an ‘anti-sagging’ construction plaster. The core raw material in all of these is cassava, one of Thailand’s most important cash crops, especially in the arid and poorly irrigated Northeast.
“Farmers have always been the underdog in the supply chain, so we set up a membership scheme that supports them through education and technology.” Dr. Werawat Lertwanawatana, CEO of SMS Group
HAILAND’S BCG TRANSFORMATION : 40 Case Studies on the Bio-Circular-Green Strategy and the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy In Action” page 136 – 146
