Building brands will enhance the value of Cần Giờ District’s agricultural specialties and enable them to reach more consumers in the domestic market and beyond, a seminar has heard in HCM City.

Speaking at the “Cần Giờ specialties and solutions to build brands of HCM City agricultural specialties" late last week, Trương Tiến Triển, deputy chairman of the district People's Committee, said the city’s only coastal district has 43,000ha of agricultural land, including 10,000ha for aquaculture with an output of 30,000 tonnes a year.

It also has 200ha of mango orchards mainly in Cần Thạnh town and Long Hòa Commune, he said.

“This is the Hòa Lộc mango variety. Farmers use fish protein to fertilise them and so the fruits have high quality and a very special taste.

“The swift-breeding industry has also developed rapidly in the district in the last 10 recent, bringing high value, and its edible bird nests are considered to be of better quality than in other areas.”

Other key agricultural products include brackish-water shrimp, oyster, clam, pangasius kunyit, and salt, he said.

The district has many specialities, but a majority without a brand name and consumers elsewhere in the country do not know about them, meaning they fail to fulfil their commercial potential, he said.

Mango, bird's nest and pangasius kunyit were registered for trademarks by 2019 by the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam, and oyster and nipa nectar are expected to get them soon, he said.

Before the seminar the city Department of Industry and Trade and district People’s Committee organised a tour of production facilities for retail chains like Saigon Co.op, Central Retail, MM Mega Market, AEON, and Satra, and food and techlonogy experts.

Nguyễn Nguyên Phương, the department’s deputy director, said the district has diverse and quality products including some other localities do not have such as nipa nectar.

But their production is small and so not very efficient, he said.

“Building brands and developing markets for the products will be much more convenient if there is support from local authorities in developing raw material areas and ensuring product quality.”

Building HCM City’s speciality brand

With its unique soil, Cần Giờ is the best place to develop speciality agricultural brands for HCM City, he said.

“From preliminary evaluation, we see that edible bird's nest is a very promising product, and so the city will trial brands for Cần Giờ’s bird’s nest products as a specialty city product.”

Nguyễn Quách Nhi, food and FMCG commercial director at e-commerce company Tiki, said the edible bird’s nest market size is estimated to be worth more than US$8 billion a year globally and $800 million in Việt Nam, with an annual growth rate of 20 per cent.

Việt Nam's edible bird’s nests are highly regarded by major markets for their superior quality and potential to be priced higher than similar products from other countries, he said.

"In particular, Cần Giờ bird's nest is considered to have outstanding quality. Many large bird's nest manufacturers have registered production area codes in Cần Giờ."

It has many advantages to establish itself as the "world's best" bird nest brand, he added.

Looking at it from another perspective, distribution businesses said the output of bird's nests and other specialities from the district is still modest.

So it is necessary to develop a zoning plan for raw material areas and demonstrate to consumers the difference of its products compared to other localities, enhance product promotion and more, they added.

Võ Hoàng Anh, private label director at Saigon Co.op, said manufacturers must identify specific advantages of each product and choose appropriate positioning to create competitiveness for the product.

He emphasised the need for specialised enterprises to establish links with farmers to organise production and ensure stable quality to build consumer trust.

Distribution systems that participated in the field trip and seminar said Cần Giờ products are of good quality and suitable for modern distribution channels, with advantages in transportation to the city’s center for consumption.

However, their presence in supermarkets is limited.

They expressed their willingness to support local manufacturers and farmers from the beginning phase of production and in quality management to promoting their products in the market.

In addition to brand building, the district needs to differentiate their products, and their prices must remain competitive and focus on developing stable raw material areas to ensure quality and output to meet future demand, they said.

Efforts should be directed towards promoting the creation of geographical indications and trade indications for the products, embracing technologies in production and processing to increase their added value, they added — VNS