Vietnamese fruits attract international customers

Chanh Thu Fruit Import Export Group Joint Stock Company is among Vietnamese enterprises that participated in THAIFEX-Anuga Asia 2022, held in Bangkok, Thailand from May 24-28.

The international food and beverage tradeshow is the leading trade event in Asia after 2 years of hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An ultimate connector to Asia's leading and emerging F&B industry players, this one-stop food exhibition features the latest food and beverage innovations, food technologies, food safety standards, fascinating culinary experience, and retail & franchise in ASIA.

It is a must-attend trade event to meet, establish new business networks, and seize more market share

With over 1,200 exhibitors, 2,500 hosted buyers, and an expected 40,000 trade visitors reconnecting under 1 roof, it further emphasized that physical networking is key to business success.

It was also the first time that a member of the Business Association of high-quality Vietnamese goods with the project "Vietnamese goods - Integration standards" attended the fair since Thaifex 2019.

After attending this event, Vy said she noticed that there are 3 groups of customers interested in the Vietnamese fruit industry.

The first group includes Asian customers mainly from India, South Korea and Thailand. Vietnamese fruits have always been favored by foreign businesses and in this tradeshow, Indian businesses expressed special interest in Vietnamese dragon fruit, which is also favored in Indian markets. Particularly, Vietnam is known as the country where high-quality dragon fruits are produced all year round.

In addition to India, businesses from Thailand are also interested in dragon fruit from Vietnam.

Meanwhile, South Korean businesses are interested in Vietnamese fresh mangoes. However, to be eligible to be exported to the markets, Vietnamese fresh fruits need to be processed with a hot steam technique that could only be conducted by two units in Vietnam. Consequently, Vietnamese businesses that wish to export their fruit products to South Korea become passive as there are not enough units to provide such service.

The second group includes European customers. Most of them look for suppliers of deeply processed fruits such as dried mangoes or fresh fruit products. However, fresh fruit products could only be exported to Europe by air, which leads to high costs, reduced competitiveness, and limited export volume.

The third group consists of American customers, the majority of whom are interested in frozen durian from Vietnam. They have commented that Vietnamese frozen durians have competitive prices compared with their Thai counterparts. In particular, Vietnam's Ri6 durian is popular with US customers.

“Through this tradeshow, we will continue to work with potential customers and learn more about fruit demand. We will therefore identify our orientation to develop deep-processed products to serve the increasing needs of customers,” Vy said.

The event is also an opportunity for Vietnamese pavilions to be compared with others.

“Compared with the pavilions of experienced large countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Thailand, the design of Vietnamese pavilions featuring the national products has not been highly appreciated. In terms of appearance, Vietnamese pavilions are generally not attractive enough for customers to linger or pay attention,” she added.

“The pavilions of different countries were designed methodically and professionally, with open spaces that attracted visitors. Therefore, we realize that their pavilions always gathered a large number of customers and left a strong impression on product presentation and packaging.

“After attending the fair, we realized that Thaifex 2022 is a great opportunity for Vietnamese businesses in particular and businesses from other countries in general to introduce many impressive products to customers. It, therefore, created favorable conditions to attract new customers. This was also an opportunity for businesses to learn more about the needs of the market and competitors. Especially, fruit producers have more information to come up with business strategies suitable to current conditions.”

Vy suggested that the Government continue to create favorable conditions for domestic businesses to participate in the trade fairs and have the opportunity to promote the image of Vietnamese products to international friends.

“However, to effectively participate in the trade fair, we need the best support from the Government and learn how to set up the pavilion professionally to impress customers. Vietnamese pavilions still lack cohesion and connection to promote the image of Vietnamese products to the world,” she said.