The Kitchen At Waraporn Salapao: An Engine Of Economic Growth

Thailand’s women have long been noted for their entrepreneurial spirit. In the case of the well-known Waraporn Salapao, founder Waraporn Suthanya was running a small corner store. Her husband, a hardworking fishmonger at the local wet market, was about to lose his stall. Faced with a looming family financial crisis, she turned to what traditional Thai moms do best, cook. Used to making the traditional Chinese-style steamed buns, or salapao, for her children to eat after school as a snack, she started to make a few extra for sale in her mom-and-pop store. Her neighbours and their children found the snacks delicious. Even the local bank began to buy them for their special events and regular meetings. Word-of-mouth, a powerful marketing tool, saw this small-scale enterprise metamorphose into Waraporn Salapao, the ubiquitous steamed bun chain comprising 78 outlets making over 50,000 buns a day, now found across Bangkok, with a few stores also outside the city.