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Foreign fruit nibbling at Vietnam’s market
While Vietnam-grown fruit producers are still trying to establish brand recognition on the domestic market, fruit from Thailand is making remarkable inroads.
Fruit imports are seizing high ground in the Vietnamese domestic market. Boxes of fruit from Thailand or China can be seen everywhere in Ho Chi Minh City, from the Binh Đien and Tam Binh wholesale markets to supermarkets and traditional neighborhood markets. The imports are diversified, plentiful and target both rich and poor consumers.
Thai fruits post big gains
At Binh Đien, Thai fruits are sold in a large area specifically reserved for Thai products. Small merchants here said that the volume of fruits imported from Thailand has doubled over two or three months ago. The Thai products -- mangos, mangosteens, tamarind and langsat -- are selling very well. Every night, a fruit stall here can sell 100 twenty kilo boxes of fruit. Sales double on weekends or holidays.
At Tam Binh Market, every fruitseller was offering mangosteen sourced from Thailand. The owner of a stall said that Thai mangosteens are selling very well at a wholesale price of 15,000-17,000 dong per kilo.
Some of the Thai fruits have relatively ‘soft’ prices. Oranges, for example, are being offered at only 8,000 dong per kilo, and mangos at 12,000-13,000 dong. Some Thai fruits undersell equivalent Vietnamese fruit by 2,000-3.000 dong per kilo.
Vietnam’s Customs Department has recorded a sharp increase in fruit and vegetable imports. Vietnam imported $16.3 million worth of fruits from Thailand from January through May, 81 percent more than in the same period of 2008. In that total were some 9,000 tonnes of mangosteen, valued at $6 million. Thai mango imports were up 134 percent, and imports of tamarind, fresh and dried, nearly quadrupled.
Imports ‘attacking’ both low and high income earners
Not just Thai fruit, but also Chinese fruit has become a significant presence in Vietnam’s market, though the total has been decreasing recently. By the end of May, imports of Chinese apples, peaches and other temperate zone fruits had reached $35.7 million, down 17 percent year over year.
The Chinese fruit sells well in markets that cater to lower income shoppers because their prices are only about two-thirds of equivalent Vietnamese products. Temperate zone fruits from Japan, US and Australia (apples, pears, oranges, grapes and plums) continue to hold a significant share of the high-end market. Though offered at as much as twice the price of Vietnamese fruit, they still sell well.
Nga, a specialist vendor, said that imported fruit has some outstanding characteristics. Though it must travel a long distance, it stays fresh as it is well packaged and transported in freezer containers.
Nga said that consumers like fruit that is packaged in boxes which show clear origins, dates of export and expiry dates. By contrast, the Vietnamese fruit is always put in bamboo baskets and lacks packing, which makes them unable to catch the eyes of buyers.
Fruit co-ops can’t get in the supermarket door
Thus, though Vietnam is a tropical country which grows a lot of fruits – 6.5 million tons per year -- imported fruits are selling everywhere in Vietnam,
In a recent meeting between Mekong Delta fruit-growing cooperatives in Mekong Delta and Saigon Co-op Mart, a prominent HCM City retailer, the fruit growers complained that though their products are certified high-quality, they still cannot meet the requirements set up by supermarkets.
Payment arrangements are a particular obstacle. The co-ops aren’t used to delayed settlement and payment through bank accounts. One fruit processor commented that to get into the supermarkets, the co-ops must pay attention to appearance and classification. In packaging, each box or carton must bear the name of the fruit and its producer and its place of origin.
vietnamnet, tt
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