Canada’s MHEnviron Group, Viet Nam’s Minh Hung Group and the US-based Avure Technologies signed on February 27 a memorandum of understanding to build a HPP (high pressure processing) technology food manufacturing and processing plant in Viet Nam.

Avure, the global leader in high-pressure technology, will supply the technologies and equipment while MHEnviron will provide the capital, operational experience and commercial expertise.

The 15ha plant will be built in Ben Luc in Long An Province at a cost of VND500 billion (over US$22 million) starting in September this year, and begin operations in 2019, according to Lam Dao Hung, chairman of Minh Hung Group.

HPP is cold pasteurisation using pure water. It uses ultra-high pressure purified water to keep packaged food pathogen-free and fresh longer. At very high pressures, bacteria such as Listeria, E.coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter are inactivated.

HPP helps producers improve food safety and extend shelf life while providing consumers with nutritious, natural and flavourful foods, Tom Woodward, vice president of sales for Avure Technologies, said.

The companies plan to make ready-to-eat foods and beverages.

Hung said initially the plant would use HPP technologies to produce ready-to-eat fresh pho (noodle soup) and bun (rice vermicelli) and other traditional Vietnamese foods and fruit juices for export to North America, Canada and the EU.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh said last year was a remarkable one for the agricultural sector with export of agro-forestry and fisheries products reaching a record of $36 billion.

The sector has potential for even more growth, but also faces challenges like small scale of production, climate change impacts, increase in competitive pressures, and low value addition due to lack of processing technologies.

HPP technology could help improve the quality of Vietnamese agricultural products and add more value to them to enable them to penetrate more markets, Doanh said. — VNS