Phuket Commerce Chief Woranit Aphiratjirawong and staff from the Phuket Commercial Office launched the campaign, called the “Commercial Fruit Festival 2022”, with a small opening ceremony yesterday (May 2).
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Commerce Jurin Laksanawisit joined the event by video conference call from his location in front of Central World, Bangkok.
“This campaign is intended to stimulate fruit consumption in the domestic market and increase distribution channels for farmers, as well as alleviate the problems of marketing and fruit prices from the production period to the market,” Ms Woranit explained.
The campaign comes amid rising prices for fresh fruits, and a frenzy of media hype especially over mangoes, following Thai teen rapper Milli, real name Danupha Khanatheerakul, performing on stage at Coachella 2022 promoting the popular Thai dessert mango with sticky rice.
The ‘Fruit Festival’ will see fresh fruit ‒ especially durian, mangoes and pineapples ‒ sold at low prices from May 2-8. Pineapples are being sold at B10 each, durian at B150 per kilo and mangoes at B100 per 3kg.
The fruit festival is being held at two locations: in front of the Phuket Commerce Office on Montri Rd in Phuket Town from 9am-4:30pm each day; and at Chillva Market in Samkong from 5pm-11pm each night.
“We have brought in cooperation from the Bureau of Weights and Measures District 2 office, which has been testing vendors’ scales to make sure they are accurate to ensure that consumers can purchase products with fairness as well,” Ms Woranit noted.