The dream of becoming the spice corner in the world's kitchen

“As a math major,the government sent me to Poland to study IT in 1981, with only numbers in my head. At the time, I thought I would be a scientist in the future, I never thought I would be a business person," said Nguyen Trung Dung, Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Dh Foods Joint Stock Company sharing his entrepreneurial story.

After years of growing up, getting married, living and working in Poland, the nostalgia for Vietnamese dishes and specialties always stayed strong in his heart, causing Nguyen Trung Dung to "scour" for them. “In Polish supermarkets, there are only Thai spices, not a single Vietnamese spice product. I often have to drive hundreds of kilometers to buy a few bottles of fish sauce, jars of eggplant and some other spices imported by Vietnamese and sold in the Vietnamese community”, Mr. Dung shared.

It was at that time that he and a group of friends established a company and started importing Vietnamese products. “Finding Vietnamese products that meet European standards in the 90s is extremely difficult. Fortunately, there are instant noodles products that I brought on business trips and were liked by friends and met the standards when tested.

We were probably the first to export instant noodles to foreign countries. We had to spend our own money to buy Quota for self-export, then we exported Choilemex chili sauce, searched through factories and brought samples. Then we exported a number of products including dry noodles, dry goods. What we saw was that in supermarkets in Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia, there are a lot of Thai spices. And Vietnam's instant noodles can be said to be the first product exported worldwide alongside other brands of noodles in the world", Mr. Dung said.

After living in Poland for 30 years, Nguyen Trung Dung returned home with a suitcase and was in charge of exporting for an instant noodle company. At the time, Nguyen Trung Dung traveled around Vietnam to meet distributors and found that Vietnam has a lot of specialty spices bearing the characteristics of each land, stretching from Ha Giang to Ca Mau but almost none of them reached the shelves in supermarkets, mainly distributed in small businesses.

It was these things that prompted Nguyen Trung Dung to start a business again with Dh Foods in 2012, when he turned 50 years old with the first spice product, Tay Ninh salt. The dream was to produce traditional Vietnamese spice products bearing the characteristics of each region, improve quality, modernize the closed production process on a large scale to increase productivity, and most importantly - Products must be completely natural, without using synthetic colors or artificial preservatives to be safer for healthy family meals.

Dh Foods is one of the pioneers to explore the market of specialty spices in Vietnam following international standards. 2017 marked a turning point when Dh Foods received the first order to export to the Netherlands with a value of nearly 12,000 USD after more than a year of persistence to meet the standards of "a demanding and fastidious customer" for each product type, factory, production process…

After that, Dh Foods had the opportunity to work with a Japanese partner, but they asked the product to be analyzed according to a list of over 1,000 criteria to be fulfilled, and at the same time, they would visit the production plant directly. Over a year of exploration, the first order Dh Foods exported to Japan was more than ½ of a 20-foot container. And so far, the number of orders from Japan has increased every month when from a 20-foot container every 3 months to a container every 2 months with the development of product codes. Currently, Dh Foods products have appeared at Don Quijote and Gyomu Super supermarkets - which are major supermarket chains in Japan.

Gradually conquering each difficult market, in the next 2 years, Dh Foods appeared in 6 new markets: Germany, Korea, UK, USA, Australia, Russia. In addition to introducing to international friends Tay Ninh Salt product, the product portfolio is constantly growing with Nha Trang Dipping Sauce, regional specialty spices collected from the North to the South.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic struck, but this is the time when Dh Foods promotes the strengths accumulated from previous difficulties to continue to develop 4 new product lines serving the home cooking needs of consumers.

According to Mr. Dung, in order to improve the value of Vietnamese spices, deep processing according to regional spice recipes, but not in an industrial way, is important. On the other hand, it is necessary to find a good source of input materials, which will contribute to the success of 70-80% of the spice industry.

“Currently, consumers around the world care a lot about health, they prefer natural spices, Vietnam has the advantage of raw materials. If we can process products from natural and regional materials, there is a lot of potential", said Mr. Dung.

Dh Foods's sales in 2021 reached VND 150 billion, an increase of 61% compared to 2020. In the first quarter of 2022, this business also achieved a growth of 66%, showing that the spice market is very attractive.

Mr. Nguyen Trung Dung said that the needs of consumers currently are different, they want to use more regional specialty spices but the products must be convenient while ensuring food safety. This is one of the reasons why Dh Foods succeeds when developing specialty spices from natural ingredients, without using chemicals, synthetic colors or preservatives.

Until this day, the dream of bringing traditional Vietnamese spice products to conquer the world's kitchen has gradually come true, as Dh Foods has produced nearly 170 spice products along the lines of chili salt, shrimp salt, dipping sauces, natural spices, cooking and marinating spices, fish sauce, pickled vegetables... from the North - Central - South regions. These products are made from natural ingredients with no added synthetic colors and no artificial preservatives, supplied to most supermarkets in Vietnam. Currently, the proportion of Dh Foods' exports to countries such as Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Australia, USA, UK, Germany, Russia... accounts for 10% of revenue. And in the future, the company will export a container of fish sauce and mixed fish sauce, aiming to bring the export proportion to 30% by 2025.

“I hope that one day, Dh Foods spices will contribute to the meals of every Vietnamese family and be present around the world. I always believe that convenient, quality spices will make meals more delicious and help people feel happier”, said Chairman of DH Foods Nguyen Trung Dung.

Recently, Dh Foods signed a cooperation agreement with Heritage Beverage Company - an importer and distributor of high-end Vietnamese products in the US market. Accordingly, Heritage Beverage will become the exclusive distributor of Dh Foods' Vietnamese specialty spices in the US. It is expected that in the third quarter of 2022, 10 containers of Dh Foods' regional specialty seasoning products will be exported to the US, having the opportunity to appear on distribution systems such as Whole Foods, Costco, Cost Plus, Safeway, Albertson's, Kroger, Trader Joe's, 99 Ranch and many Vietnamese restaurants in the US.