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Consumers encouraged to buy locally made milk
Vietnamese parents should buy local milk products, which are just as healthy as their foreign counterparts, to save money and boost the local economy, the Vietnam Standard and Consumers Association said Monday.
Consumers should buy local products for their kids and save the money to invest in their children’s futures, said Ho Tat Thang, vice chairman of the association (VINASTAS), as part of a ceremony to launch a domestic milk promotion campaign by the agency.
He said the price of imported milk was between 1.5 to 2.5 times higher than local products despite having the same ingredients, nutritional value and effects.
Imported milk accounted for 80 percent of the milk market in Vietnam, he added.
Thang said the use of domestic milk would help parents save money to spend on education.
He also said parents could buy more milk this way and keep their kids better-fed.
Economics
Turning to the national economy, Thang said the use of domestic milk products would facilitate the development of milk cow husbandry and create jobs for local farmers.
Fresh milk from local farmers supplied only 28 percent of domestic production and consumption, he said.
As for the production sector, he said the use of more domestic products would encourage enterprises to invest more in the field, improve technology and create jobs for local residents.
The VINATAS campaign also aimed to encourage local dairy firms to improve the quality of their products while reducing prices to attract more buyers, said Thang.
Advertising
Lecturer Huynh Van Son, head of the Psychology Faculty at the HCMC University of Education, said many Vietnamese parents have been easily persuaded by milk advertisements in the media.
They believed their children would become more intelligent if they drank a certain brand of milk, as shown in the ads, he said.
He said it was undeniable that the nutritious elements in milk would help the development of the brain, but he added that parents shouldn’t believe that their children will become geniuses simply by drinking a certain brand of milk as advertised.
“Many mothers have been naïve in that way,” he said. “A smart consumer is one who knows the right choice within their financial capacity and doesn’t rely too much on a specific product.”
Expensive milk
According to a report on retail sales data between 2003 and 2008 conducted by Euromonitor International – an independent provider of business intelligence – the average price of fresh milk was US$1.40 per liter in Vietnam, $0.50 in India and between $0.50-0.90 in the US and European countries.
Foreign dairy firms have spent VND152 billion ($8.89 million) on advertising their products in Vietnam over the first five months the year, according to research by TNS Vietnam – an affiliate of market researcher TNS.
This spending has increased by 36 percent year-on-year, with Dutch Lady topping the list at VND44 billion ($2.57 million), followed by Dumex and Mead Johnson, each with VND25 billion ($1.46 million).
Experts said the firms’ spending on advertisements had contributed to push the prices of imported milk in Vietnam.
A national comparative study released last month reported that imported powdered milk in Vietnam sometimes retailed at more than three times the price of neighboring countries.
The Vietnam competition
Authority at the Ministry of Industry and Trade said the survey was conducted on 100 milk products from 10 producers with the cooperation of agencies in neighboring countries.
Surveyed were 20 products of seven companies – Abbott, Mead Johnson, Nestle, Dumex, Friso, XO and Dutch Lady – in six countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
According to the survey, retail prices of most milk products in Vietnam were the highest in the region. The highest price difference was Dumex’s Dugro 1, 2, 3, which sells in Vietnam at two to three times higher than in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Other products sell in Vietnam at between 10-70 percent higher than other countries in the survey.
Thang said a recent inspection in HCMC found Mead Johnson Vietnam had proposed that distributor Tan Tien Company retail milk at prices 200 percent higher than production cost.
The 900-gram Enfa ProA+ has a production price of VND64,000 but was sold to Tan Tien at VND102,000, and retailed for VND140,000.
Quang Thuan
thanhnien
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