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The Centre for Management Practice

The Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage: Uplifting the Doi Tung People in Thailand through the Specialty Coffee Business

The Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage: Uplifting the Doi Tung People in Thailand through the Specialty Coffee Business

By: Chiraphol New Chiyachantana , Hun-Tong Tan , Pattarawan Mai Prasarnphanich , Thomas Lim
Discipline: Social Enterprise

Description

This case, which is set in 2023, is based on the story of a people whose lives had been destroyed by opium, an addictive drug derived from the poppy plant. For a long time, the Doi Tung people living in the remote Mae Fah Luang district in Thailand near the Golden Triangle had been growing poppy for a living, but this had led to various social, health, and economic ills.

When the late Thai Princess Mother Her Royal Highness Princess Sringarindra learnt about this, she initiated the Doi Tung Development Project (DTDP) through the Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage (MFLF) to help the Doi Tung people switch from cultivating opium to growing other cash crops. Navuti Company Limited, one of Thailand’s earliest social enterprises, was then established to provide the necessary capital for the MFLF’s agro-forestry business. In recent years, specialty coffee has become the cash crop of choice for the DTDP, given its upmarket appeal and the higher prices it fetches.

M.L. Dispanadda Diskul, CEO of the MFLF, was preoccupied with the challenges that lay ahead for the coffee farmers. In addition, he was not sure if steering the Doi Tung coffee farmers towards cultivating specialty coffee was indeed the right decision. If not, the MFLF would need to go back to the drawing board and reconsider its options.

This case is intended for use in management courses on social enterprises, especially those based in Southeast Asia. Students should be able to achieve the following learning objectives: evaluate the effectiveness of the MFLF and/or Navuti as social enterprises, determine the type of social enterprise and operational model they fall under, discuss how they used focus and differentiation for their coffee business, and examine their business model using the Impact Business Model Canvas.

Inspection copies and teaching notes are available for university faculty. To receive an inspection copy and teaching note, please email cmpshop@smu.edu.sg with your registered faculty email ID and a link to your contact information on the faculty directory at your university as verification. An inspection copy and teaching note will then be sent to your faculty email account.

Download information

SMU Faculty/Staff can download the case & teaching note on iNet with your SMU login ID & Password via the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-25-0002)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0002TN)

For purchase of the case and supplementary materials via The Case Centre, please access the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-25-0002)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0002)

For purchase of the case and supplementary materials via Harvard Business Publishing, please access the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-25-0002)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0002)

Industry

Nonprofits

Temporal Coverage

2023

Year Completed

2025

Education Level

Executive
Postgraduate
Undergraduate

Data Source

Field Research

Geographic Coverage

Thailand

Published Date

Price

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