New Development – Now Our Thai Curry Pastes Taste Even Better and Fresher!

There is never dull moment in business as they say, and a few things happened to our business behind the scenes in 2024 that came as a shock. These events made us re-look at the way we produce our Thai curry pastes. So now it’s time to update you…

The Background

As you might know we started making our sauces and Thai curry pastes in The Coconut Kitchen restaurant kitchen in 2014. Sometimes we had to make them in the evening after service after the last customers had been fed, other times we made them on the days the restaurant was closed. Increased sales soon made us realise that this was not sustainable! We either needed to build our own factory or outsource the production. We decided that we would first seek a Co-producer and see what quality we could get – if they could match our quality then the decision would be made for us, if they couldn’t then build a factory we would.

As it turned out we found the perfect partner in South Wales a Japanese company that also brewed their own Soy sauce and the quality of the product they made for us was superb. We then gradually transferred all our recipes to them and they have been making our sauces and pastes since 2016.

The Shock

However suddenly in January 2024 our partner was hit with a massive hike in costs after an audit. They realised that they needed to increase their prices to all customers and our Thai curry pastes would be going up by over 30%! Now we understand that although our curry pastes are of great quality, they certainly are at the higher end of the scale price wise.

We simply could not pass this cost on to our loyal customers.

So, we set about thinking, what to do and how we were going to do this? We had to start moving soon as if we were going to survive, we could not absorb these costs for too long!

At the same time, we also wanted to audit our supply chain and see if we could make things more efficient and take some plastic out of our supply chain and finished product packaging.

The Review of our Thai Curry Pastes

After a review it became clear that although we proudly made all our Thai Curry pastes and sauces in Wales, a lot of our ingredients were imported from Thailand only to be reworked into our secret recipe here.

In fact, the base of all our pastes was already mixed for us in Thailand and then it was vacuum packed in plastic bags and shipped over to Wales.

So, we decided the sensible thing to do was to look to Thailand and see if we could find a suitable co-producer there to make our pastes.

We already use a very good agent in Thailand to help source ingredients and so that’s were we started. We were then given a shortlist of 3 and finally chose one producer based just about 40km northwest of Bangkok.

The Choice

We chose them firstly because they were still a small family run company but big enough to have the internationally known BRC A hygiene a small accreditation that we insist on with all our suppliers.

Secondly, and this was the real winner, they literally do everything themselves. They start with all the freshest raw ingredients straight from the local farms and markets. There is no buying in of pre-processed, prepacked, chopped vegetables and herbs or pre-ground spices – they do it all by hand on site! See the video for the most amazing lemongrass!

So, we knew we were taking a lot of single use plastic out of our production process as all the raw materials are delivered unpacked into our new factory.

But we also wanted to take plastic out of the finished product too if we could…

If you have purchased our pastes before you will know there are 2 x 65g plastic sachets in each pack. Originally, we did this for 2 reasons. Firstly, we thought that a good proportion of our customers will just use the 1 sachet to make a curry – even though our recipe says you need both sachets and 400ml of coconut milk to make a curry.

Secondly, our co-producer really struggled to make sachets over 120g, and it was going to cost a lot more to do this size.

So that’s why historically you get the 2 x65g sachets in each pack.

Finally, the new pack!

The good news was the new Thai factory could fill in a 130g sachet. So, we could reduce the overall plastic weight by 10%. Not lifechanging but a step in the right direction.

Also, after speaking to many customers, it seems that very few customers use only 1 of the 65g sachets at a time and most use both so we decided to make the change and just fill 1 x 130g, so just one sachet in each pack.

So Paul and Nancy went to Thailand in October 2024 to oversee the first production and check the recipes were exactly how we wanted them and you will see some of the processes in the short video above.

Made in Thailand, Packed in Wales

So that’s the story of making the pastes made and filling them into sachets, a process all now done in Thailand, but they are still finished off in Wales at our warehouse.

To save space on the ship we just ask our Thai producer to ship the sachets (withoug the final packaging). We get 4320 on each pallet! These are then delivered to our warehouse in Abergele, Conwy where we can apply the final bit of quality control. We taste them and then once each batch is approved every sachet is checked before packing into the cardboard sleeves and then into cases of 6 ready to be shipped out to our distributors and retailers. You can see the new Packs here

The Roll out

So as we approach the end of 2024 you will start to see the new packs in your local stores and online and that’s the story of how they reach you, it’s been quite a journey in both senses of the word!

In summary what you will see is, a very similar pack but with just the one, sachet in there. It’s still the same total weight though (no sneaky shrinkflation going on here!)

And the benefits being:

1. We have reduced the single use plastic in our end product by 10%
2. We have taken all the single use plastic, 100%, out of our production process
3. We are minimising the shipping space on transporting the Thai curry pastes from Thailand to the UK by only shipping what’s necessary. This is always transported by sea and never by Air.
4. We now produce a fresher and even more authentic tasting curry pastes
5. Even in this world of high inflation we have managed not to increase the price of our curry pastes. They have increased by just 3% in the last 3 years and we hope to keep the price the same for the foreseeable future.

Oh and by the way our bottled Thai sauces are still made in South Wales by the same partner and in the same bottle, it’s just the curry pastes that have changed.

And that’s it, the end of the beginning of the new curry paste story!  Thanks for your continued support and we hope you carry on enjoying great Thai curries from The Coconut Kitchen!

Post script: A Sad loss

I could not finish this story without a mention of my beloved dad.

Sadly, Dad, James Arthur Withington passed away 2 days after this video was made. He was fighting lung cancer and although we all thought he was making a recovery in hospital in France after weeks of gruelling Radio and Chemotherapy I got a call from my sister and mum 4 days after arriving in Thailand. The bad news they shared was that he had taken a turn for the worse after getting a lung infection. I cut the trip very short and went straight from the factory to the airport and took a flight to Paris to then get down to Limoges hospital, near their home. I spoke to him before boarding but sadly dad passed 5 hours before I reached him. He was a great dad to me and Jo,  a much loved husband to mum and a proud grandfather to 4 children. He loved Thailand and Thai food and was very proud of all we have done in this sphere and was looking forward to this next stage that sadly he won’t see but he will carry on forever in our hearts. RIP Dad.