Our Story — Thai Beef at Its Finest

Ploypailin Cunningham

In Ploy's words

I built this for my family.

My name is Ploypailin Cunningham. Everyone calls me Ploy. I own Thai Beef at Its Finest — all of it, on my own — and I built it for my husband Ben and our three sons, Lincoln, Martin, and William.

Ben spent his life around cattle before I ever met him. When he talks about it, he doesn't talk about a business first — he talks about a ranch in Texas, and what his family taught him there. I wanted our boys to have a real, working version of that same lesson, just on this side of the world. This business is how I gave it to them.

"You can fake a label. You can't fake ten years of learning a herd by hand."— Ploypailin Cunningham

The Cunningham family's son at a Texas livery stable

Texas roots, still visited today

Ben, back home in Texas

Where it started

A ranch in Texas, a lifetime ago.

Ben grew up raising Brahman cattle on his family's ranch in Texas. It's the kind of upbringing that doesn't really leave a person — the early mornings, the herd work, the specific, stubborn patience cattle demand of the people who raise them.

Long before Thai Beef existed, that upbringing became a career: Ben spent over ten years exporting beef genetics — semen, embryos, and entire shuttle flights of live cattle — from Texas to Thailand, through his business, Thai-Tex Cattle Exporters. It's the same bloodline work that operations like YZ-International Livestock do between the two countries: Texas genetics, Thailand herds, one shared standard. He still goes back — boots on, hat on, same as ever.

Ben and Ploy Cunningham with partner ranchers in Thailand

Ben & Ploy with partner ranchers, Thailand

Thai-Tex Cattle Exporters

Ten-plus years, two countries.

For over a decade, Ben's business moved Brahman genetics from Texas into Thai herds — by semen, by embryo, and by entire shuttle flights of live cattle. It's slow, unglamorous, relationship-driven work: building trust with ranch families across Isan villages, one herd at a time, until they were raising the same bloodlines Ben grew up with.

Those relationships are the actual foundation of Thai Beef. Every partner ranch we buy from today is a ranch Ben personally worked with, in some cases for years, before Ploy ever bought a single cut of beef from them.

Ben Cunningham grilling steaks for his family

Ben, still at the grill

Retirement, sort of

Ben's out of the field. Not out of the kitchen.

Ben is retired from the day-to-day genetics work now. These days, Ploy mostly puts him to work once a week: cooking. Every Sunday after church, Ben grills his favorite cut of the week for the whole table — Ploy, Lincoln, Martin, William, and Naw Sha and May, the two nannies our family loves like our own.

Ploy films it and posts a new video every week — Ben at the grill, the boys underfoot, everyone eating together. It's a small tradition, but it's the actual point of all the genetics work that came before it: a table with good beef on it and the people you love around it.

Looking ahead

Lincoln, Martin, and William. Cattlemen in training.

Our three boys are growing up the way Ben did — around barns, around cattle, around people who work with their hands. One day, this will be theirs the way it once was Ben's family's. For now, they're learning the herd, learning the business, and learning to look after their mama the way Ben taught them to.

Lincoln, Martin & William

Lincoln, Martin, and William Cunningham together at home

All three, at home

One of the Cunningham sons in a cattle barn aisle

At home in the barn

Our story.

I built this for my family.

A ranch in Texas, a lifetime ago.

Ten-plus years, two countries.

Ben's out of the field. Not out of the kitchen.

Lincoln, Martin, and William. Cattlemen in training.

This is the family behind every cut we sell.