Some days ago, dragon fruit was seen piled up on the pavements in HCM City and sold at VND5,000-7,000 per kilo. Now in Hanoi, lychee, which is in high harvesting season, is priced at VND15,000 per kilo. Farmers have to sell lychee immediately, because if they don't the fruit will rot.
Meanwhile, Vietnam’s dragon fruit is a favorite in the world market. An expert said some countries import Vietnam’s dragon fruit and can make more than 10 products. In Thailand, fruits can be processed into many different types of sweets and jams.
To date, the majority of Vietnam’s fruits have been exported either as fresh or preliminarily treated products. Baby corn, for example, is exported to other countries in bags. Meanwhile, the importers, after re-packing, will sell the products under their brands.
Potential left unexploited
Reports all show the great development potential of the Vietnam’s food and beverage processing industry. The high population of 90 million is a solid foundation for the development of food services and guarantee for the consumption of processed food.
In 2015, the consumption of food and drinks in the domestic market reached $40 billion, or 71 percent of the total production value, while the remaining was for export.
Utilizing modern technologies to process food and beverages to heighten the value of farm produce is an urgent task that Vietnamese enterprises need to do to compete with imports.
According to Grant Thornton Vietnam, in 2015, food processing and beverages was one of the two industries which attracted the most investment.
The industry witnessed a growth rate of 34 percent in investment, a slight increase compared with 33 percent the year before.
