On 10 February 2023, Ms. Acharapan Yavaprapas, Consul-General of Thailand in Kolkata inaugurated ‘Thailand Food and Fruits Fiesta 2023’ at Spencer’s Hyper Store at South City Mall, Kolkata, featuring the collaboration between the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Kolkata, Thai Trade Center in New Delhi and Spencer’s Retails during 10 February – 5 March 2023. 

The objectives of the event were to create greater awareness of Thai food products’ quality, diversity and accessibility; to promote Thai food’s positive image as high-quality product; to make Thai food more popular among middle and upper-class consumers; and to expand export opportunity for Thai food products in India. For 2023, in-store promotion for Thai food products is being held at 8 Spencer’s stores in West Bengal. Nowadays, Spencer’s Hyper Store has become a leading retail company and hypermarket, headquartered in Kolkata, with the presence of over 120 branches in 35 cities across India. In addition, sales volume of Thai food products accounts for around 30% of total import food products sold at Spencer’s.        

Consul-General expressed hope that ‘Thailand Food and Fruits Fiesta 2023’ would help realising the long-term goal in presenting new image of Thai food as easy home cooking food that can be enjoyed everyday side by side with local Bengali dishes. For this reason, Tom Yam Goong (prawn, hot and sour soup) and Tom Kha Goong (prawn, galangal and coconut soup) were selected to be demonstrated at the inauguration ceremony both the traditional way of how to make the broth from scratch with fresh herbs, or the simpler way by using ready-made pastes as shortcut recipe. Since both soups are quite similar, participants can learn to make two different menus from one recipe.

The inauguration ceremony was broadcasted via Facebook Live on Spencer’s Retail and the Consulate-General’s accounts. At the event, a wide range of Thai food products and fresh produces such as mangosteen, longan, rambutan, guava, kafir lime and bird’s eye chilies was featured as well as the performance of Thai traditional dance and the cooking demonstration of three Thai dishes; namely, Tom Yam Goong, Tom Kha Goong, and Kanom Maw Gaeng (baked mung beans custard).