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Storm affects canned food exports
Canned fruit and vegetable producer Lao Agro Industry Company in Vientiane province has informed its customers that it will not be able to increase exports to meet the additional demand for canned sweetcorn until next year.
“We are unable to meet the current demand because we are facing a shortage of local supply from farms to the factory in Thoulakkhom district,” a senior company official, Mr Chanin Awakulpanich, said yesterday.
The company will only export its initial order of 170 containers of canned sweetcorn this year, and will withhold additional containers until the start of next year's export plan.
“Normally, each year we export additional products to meet customer demand in advance because it does not impact on our supply,” he said.
However, the company is currently facing a reduced supply of sweetcorn after its farms were flooded at the end of June, the start of July, and “again from the torrential rains over the weekend as tropical storm Nock-Ten reached Laos,” Mr Chanin said.
The company works with farmers to grow sweetcorn on over 2.4 million square metres in the province, on farms mostly lining the banks of the Nam Ngum River.
Over 1.6 million square metres of farmland in Vientiane province were flooded during many days of rain at the end of June and start of July. Fortunately, some farmers have plantations on higher ground.
“Nock-Ten flooded an additional 16,000 square metres, which is on high ground, over the weekend because water drainage was too slow,” he said.
“However the damage from the most recent flood was less than previous ones because farmers had already harvested most of their crops,” he said.
Farmers normally supply 30 to 40 tonnes of sweetcorn to the company's processing factory per day, but at present can only supply 10 tonnes every two or three days.
The company had hoped to receive about 1,500 tonnes of sweetcorn at its plant last month and a similar figure this month, but now can only hope for about 300 to 400 tonnes for each month.
Farmers are also having difficulty replanting their crops because of the water on their fields.
“We cannot plant the corn by direct seeding, which we usually do, because the seeds will rot,” he said.
The company has suggested using a new technique that involves nursing the seeds until they reach the sapling stage before planting the crop on higher ground.
Even though the company cannot meet the market demand, exports this year are still higher than last year's 120 containers.
“We hope exports will continue to increase next year as well,” he said.
The Lao Agro Industry Company has a large number of foreign buyers in the UK, France, Germany, Poland, Vietnam and Thailand.
In addition to canned sweetcorn, it produces pickled garlic and cabbage, rambutan in syrup, baby corn in brine, bamboo shoots, sweetcorn milk and palm seeds on its 5-hectare site. It sources most of its raw materials from forests and local farms, although some vegetables are imported.
The company produces 3,600 tonnes of canned fruit and vegetables per year, about 5 percent of which is sold on the domestic market, with the remaining 95 percent exported to overseas customers.
It has three international accreditations - Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) and British Retail Consortium (BRC) – which indicate production and product quality.
vientiane times
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