Abstract:
The purpose of this project was to study the policy and system of environmental management of the food processing industry. The study will cover production, marketing human resource management, accounting and finance, and attitudes and perception of management toward environmental management. The research is intended to find problems and barrier of the environmental management. Results of the study will be used to set guideline for developing better environmental management of food processing industry. The research stated with collecting secondary data on the operations of food industry and environmental management of government sector, business sector and other countries. The data was used to develop questionnaire which was tested and modified before mailing to business companies. Samples were selected, using stratified sampling techniques, from four types of food processing industries - Rice Processing, Fruit & Vegetable Processing, Seafood Processing, and Paultry Processing. Each type of industry contains 50 samples which make the total sample equal to 200. Data from returned questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS-PC using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Results from the study showed that Food Processing Industry generates the export revenue of 150,575 million baths for the country in 1996 at the growth rate of 4.5%. There were13,832 food manufacturing plants hiring more than 500,000 workers. Even though the industry brought a hugh sum of export money into the country, the industry still faced barriers from trading countries. These barriers include tariff as well as non-tariff measurements, particularly the hygiene measurements. These hygiene measurements, such as CODEX, HACCP, and ISO 14000, issue various regulations for the protection of consumer's health and workers' safety.From the 200 samples that the questionnaire were mailed, there were 165 returned. The majority of the companies responded can be described as a young medium size companied with the registered capital less than 50 million baths, the assets between 100-600 million baths, the years of operation less than 11, sales revenue more than 500 million baths, and number of employees more than 300. Three-fourth of the responded are the exporter and one-fourth received the BOI privilege. Most of the companies voluntarily set up the policy and planning of environmental management, however, they did not have any formal organization in charge of environmental management. In general, the export companies with bigger size and, higher revenue, invested more on environmental management in many areas.Most of the companies in food processing industry received little information about environmental campaign. In fact, they were not interested and did not receive any award related to environment. The important criteria the company used to evaluate the success of environmental management is reduction on waste, followed by reduction on energy hazard and resources consumption. The benefit the companies gained from environmental management are reduction in expenses, saving on energy and raw material, creation of good image, and keeping good relationship with the community and society. On the marketing aspect, the most important thing the company did was producing products that are friendly to the environment followed by products having instruction for usage, packaging that reduce waste, packaging used recycle material and packaging that can be refilled or biological decay. The companies used product differentiation strategy by focusing on the products that are friendly to the environment. On the questions asking about production management of food processing industry, it was found that most of the companies had implemented many strategies in the manufacturing plants including energy saving, water saving, wasted reduction, saving in resource consumption, having production process that did not create pollution, treatment of waste and hazardous material, safety management, using light-bulbs and machines that save energy, having regular maintenance on machines and equipments. The activity that very few companies implemented was the Life Cycle Analysis. On the human resource management aspect, most of the companies in food processing industry organized campaigns for the saving on electricity, water, and material, followed by health check-up, and training workforce to have good attitude toward environment. Companies in food industry invested very little on the environment, half of them invested less than 10 million baths. Most of the investment were on waste water treatment. They neither recorded nor having any accounting system for environmental management. Besides, they did not invested on research and development of the environment. Most of the executive in food processing industry considered that their own companies are comparable with the industry on the efficiency of environmental management, standard of environmental management, technology of environmental management and participation of employees. Considering the standard granted, most of the companies were awarded the TISI the most, followed by HACCP and ISO 9000. Only few companies received ISO 1400. Results from the meeting to present preliminary research study, there are many recommendations for the development of environmental management in the area of marketing production and human resources for all sectors involved including government, business, and people. The government must set the policy and issue regulation to protect environment, and promote the concern of business and people on the environment. The business must produce products that are friendly to the environment. The people must concern and have good attitude toward the environment. Case studies were developed to be used for the training of executives on environmental management.