Chollada Luangpituksa, Pairoj Luangpituksa

A study of iodized salt production cost in Bangkok Metropolitan Region
ACSS2015 Conference, Oral Presentation
papers.iafor.org/submission16868/

Abstract:
According to the Universal Salt Iodization (USI) program, all salt for human consumption in the Kingdom of Thailand has been regulated by the Thai Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure adequate iodine nutrition. The salt producers have to ensure that iodized salt contains the iodine level of 20-40 mg iodine/kg (20-40 ppm). To substantially improve the quality of iodized salt, in 2013 the FDA subsidized 70 small-scale mixing machines (40 kg/batch) and 30 large-scale mixing machines (150 kg/batch). The producers have to bear the machine cost for only 30 percent of total price. This paper aims to calculate the iodized salt production cost by small-scale and large-scale mixing machines in the Bangkok Metropolitan region, where more than 75 percent of the salt producers in the central region received the subsidy. The data were collected through an in-depth interview of 13 samples out of a population of 28 by non-proportional purposive sampling during February and March 2015. The interviews were conducted at the salt production plants from 9 small-scale and 4 large-scale mixing machine operations. The average total cost of production comprises of raw material cost, capital cost, iodization cost, and packing cost. The average cost for iodized salt productions are 5,860 baht/ton for small scale machine-mixing method and 5,875 baht/ton for large scale machine-mixing method.

A full paper is not available for this presentation.