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Heavy rain puts stop to sweetcorn processing
Lao Agro Industry Company in Vientiane province, which cans and bottles fruit and vegetables, has stopped the production of canned sweetcorn until next year.
“We temporarily halted production because we're facing a shortage of supply to our factory in Thoulakkhom district,” senior company official Mr Chanin Awakulpanich said yesterday.
The company works with farmers in the province to grow sweetcorn on over 2.4 million square metres. Farmers normally supply 30 to 40 tonnes of sweetcorn to the company's processing plant each day.
“But at present there is no supply. The farmers are having difficulty replanting their crops because of the water in their fields,” Mr Chanin said.
He hopes there will not be much rain next month so farmers can start planting corn, which will be ready to harvest in three months.
“If we can plant next month, we will harvest the corn in January and resume production. Then we will be able to resume exports by the end of January or early February,” he said.
“If it keeps raining next month and the planting is delayed, then production and export will also be delayed.”
Even though the company has stopped production, it is continuing to fulfil existing purchase orders because it has 50 containers of canned sweetcorn in a warehouse.
“But this will all be used up by end of the year,” Mr Chanin said.
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, it exports additional products each year to meet customer demand in advance because it does not impact on the corn supply.
The 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.
“Currently we're just bottling palm seeds because we have a large supply from the northern provinces this time of year,” Mr Chanin said.
The company has been f acing a reduced supply of sweetcorn since its farms were flooded at the end of June when tropical storm Nock-Ten struck Laos and because of more heavy rain since the beginning of this month.
Even though the company cannot meet market demand, exports this year are still higher than last year's 120 containers and the company hopes exports will continue to increase next year as well.
The company produces 3,600 tonnes of canned or bottled fruit and vegetables per year, about 5 percent of which is sold on the domestic market and the remaining 95 percent is exported.
It has three international accreditations - Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) and British Retail Consortium (BRC) – which certify production and product quality.
vientiane times
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