Customers were ready; kitchens weren't
In Bangkok customers backed eco-friendly packaging, but few shops offered it — juggling several packaging types became a burden.
Impact & research
Not just an app — an experiment still running
Tamsang-Tamsong is a pilot run out of the Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, testing whether a digital platform can genuinely belong to the community that uses it — and in what form.
2020
Started at Soi Ladprao 101
70+
Shops in the Ladprao 101 area
44
Riders on the platform in the first area
3–5
km² — the neighbourhood scale the model is built for
The model
A multi-stakeholder platform cooperative
Instead of a single owner, three stakeholder groups — restaurants, riders and customers — co-own and co-run the platform. The rules come out of regular meetings between them, not from a head office announcement.
The approach draws on the platform cooperativism movement, after the team joined a Platform Cooperativism Consortium online course in 2020.
Restaurants
Set their own prices, keep the full amount, and have a say in the rules.
Riders
Work within the existing rank system, are not pulled away from their stand, and are not disciplined by a rating score.
Customers
Pay the real delivery cost, see it transparently, and keep the money circulating locally.
Environment
Delivery without the plastic
In Phuket, Tamsang-Tamsong worked with GIZ and the Phuket Environmental Foundation on “Less Plastics in Phuket”, replacing single-use packaging with a reusablepintotiffin carrier.
- On the first order, the food arrives in a pinto at no charge
- On the next order, hand the old pinto back to the rider — or leave a 270 THB deposit, refunded on return
- The aim is to keep pintos circulating, not to collect deposits
The work sits under “Rethinking Plastics – Circular Economy Solutions to Marine Litter”, funded by the European Union and Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
What we learned
Lessons from trial and error
Talk to the whole circle, not one side
Progress depended on a solid local network and continuous conversation with every stakeholder group at once.
Phuket joined up all three goals
The Phuket project showed how economic, social and environmental goals can be pursued together.
What's next
Comparing two models of ownership
The next phase compares the multi-stakeholder cooperative in Phuket with a worker-cooperative model planned for Surat Thani, looking at both operational efficiency and the quality of stakeholder collaboration.