UPH Incense (Thailand) Ltd.

Pampering incense lovers in the Thai way

The smell of incense brings a relaxing feeling to calm the mind and body. Far more than just a symbol of the old days, incense sticks have always been associated with the mystical side of the Eastern culture. But it has now gained overwhelming popularity in the west and quite a fad in the new age movement, too. How to transform such a historic symbol into a lucrative export business is an art in itself. By combining the age-old stuff with modern marketing approach, the UPH Incense (Thailand) Ltd, or UPH, has been able to convert a family operation into a thriving internaionalized business.

A veteran expert in incense and fragrance, Mr. Montri Saeung, General Manager of UPH, has mastered the art for fragrances and smell flavour since youth. Throughout the years, he has learnt to distinguish and blend fragrances under the instruction of his father, which has become practically an ingrained part of his life. He described, "Back in 1962, we started off as a family business with my dad selling fragrances and natural flavours and chemicals to domestic stores. I and my second brother, Mongkol Saeung, learnt to know all kinds of smell fragrances at our young age. My dad had passed to us all the skills in smelling and mixing fragrances. Now, it is essentially our lives."

Since 1994, UPH has grown into a full-fledged incense products exporter with highly established and skilled production staff. To enrich and go beyond the traditional product series, Montri Saeung had managed to diversify the business by applying his knowledge of fragrances to many other related products. "I have added many other home fragrance options, such as car freshener paper, air freshener spray, auto-gel freshener and candles to my product line-ups, on top of the traditional incense sticks and cones. Moreover, I would like to add value to my incense and flavour business by marketing our incense products with a more attractive and colourful packaging."

Today, UPH is one of the leading manufacturers in Thailand to provide a comprehensive range of fragrance-related products, from incense sticks, to air freshener, and any other products that can make use of different fragrances. Even so, incense sticks and cones remain as UPH's major product categories. By doing a good mix of traditional recipes, the company has expanded its market coverage. "I use the 100% natural ingredients to make quality products, which offer unrivalled appeal to the western customers. By mixing such natural ingredients as sandalwood, clove with some other fine fragrances of the western culture and putting them into custom-made packaging, we are able to bring the eastern touch to the western customers," said Montri Saeung.

To gain an in-depth understanding of the markets, Montri Saeung even take the effort to make "field studies" of western homes to learn their fragrance preference. Europeans, Japanese and other Asians all have their unique and different preferences. Based on this knowledge, Mr. Montri can further fine-tune the products, for example, by "hiding away" the woody smell associated with traditional incense products through injecting floral smells.

Other than good smell, attractive packaging design is another key part of UPH's winning recipe to cast appeal to its customers. To put on a twist on such a traditional commodity, one must be flexible enough to cater to customers' requests on how to tailor-pack the products for specific markets. Mr. Montri explained, "I have learnt from my Japanese customers how packaging can work magic to win big sales, especially when the products are on the retailing shelves. Now, I put much of my attention on the printing quality and colour control of our product packaging. I make sure the visual design of the packing is giving an upmarket image."

He added," Many customers nowadays would like to have their own custom-made packaging. For this reason, I even run my own printing factory to cope with their request."

Even though incense burning was an age-old tradition, Mr. Montri does find that young people today are becoming more and more obsessed with incenses. He elaborated, "Since 1996, sales of our incense sticks and cones have increased a great deal. Quite a good number of my customers are 'new-generation' young people. The best-quality incense will burn and give that natural aroma on a ceramic or wood holder. I can catch up with the New Age Movement in the west by tuning our product packaging to their taste."

According to Montri Saeung, the most popular fragrances in the west include sandalwood, lavender, Thai jasmine, rose, strawberry, rasberry, magnolia, etc. "In addition, I have also tried to blend a traditional Thai tropical flavors called 'Nam Oop Thai' with flowers," he added.

Looking ahead, Montri Saeung believes that bundling incense with candles is the way to go for his business development. In Thai tradition, incense is always bundled together with candles during sales. Therefore, by default the Saeung clan has also mastered the skills of making candles. With such an advantage, Montri Saeung sees it as the right direction for him to bring such combination into the market, "Many markets started to levy new tax on China, one of the world's major candle exporters. I find this situation has created a market niche for us to exert our expertise and skills."

To cater for the market demand, Montri Saeung has started adding natural herbal ingredients into UPH's already winning formulas. "I would like to include those natural herbal such as lemongrass, rosemary, acasia, natural cinnamon powder, etc. The herbal smell can make the mind calm and smooth, helping people relax and calm down. My incense can also be burnt in the spa and in the living room to make a long-lasting good smell," he explained.

Finally, UPH is also moving to expand into other home products, such as soaps and candles.

Back