New programme to bring more Vietnamese fresh foods into modern distribution channels

Speaking at a seminar in HCM City on Wednesday, Nguyen Ngoc Hoa, the department’s deputy director, said after 10 years of implementing, the “Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods” campaign has achieved success.

But the campaign targets people’s patriotism and only processed items have achieved a foothold whereas fresh food and other agricultural products have not really won consumers’ trust and their quality is inconsistent, he said.

“The city has huge demand for fresh food.”

It needs 600,000 tonnes of rice, 216,000 tonnes of pork, 130,000 tonnes of poultry meat, one billion poultry eggs, nearly one million tonnes of fruits and vegetables, and 132,000 tonnes of fisheries products annually.

According to market research firm Kantar Worldpanel Viet Nam, with higher incomes consumers tend to spend more on new kinds of goods, but fresh foods and fast moving consumer goods remain their main items of purchase, and they account for more than one fourth of the total spending in the city.

“Consumers are paying greater attention to high-quality products while to be exported products must meet strict quality standards set by importing countries,” Hoa said.

Therefore, the department had proposed a new method to improve the efficiency of the “Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods” campaign through the “Giving wings to Vietnamese products” programme, he said.

The programme would help standardise and improve the quality of farm produce and fresh foods through the application of VietGap, GlobalGap, HACCP and other standards in production, and revamp their packaging and enable tracing of product origins, he said.

Distribution channels would sign purchase contracts with producers and only accept products meeting quality standards and traceability, Hoa said.

According to delegates, the city only meets 10-15 per cent of its demand and the rest is supplied by other cities and provinces.

Through the programme, the city would provide market information to other cities and provinces to enable them to develop areas for growing raw materials and create links between production, distribution and consumption.

At the event, the Department of Industry and Trade signed memorandums of understanding with 10 distributors, including Saigon Co.op, E-Mart Vietnam, Satra, MM Mega Market, VinCommerce, Aeon, and Big C, for implementing the programme.