Apples have always been a regular produce for countries found outside tropical climates. Grapes also have an exotic appeal for people from tropical countries. Despite this both fruits are popular all over the world and Vietnam is no exception.
Vietnam imports its grapes from three countries – Australia, South Africa and the US. According to Tran Vac Chuc, Vice Director of Fruits and Greens Company in Vietnam, “We’ve seen a 20% increase in our sales of grapes. Our company has also noticed that the number of retailers has also gone up. Typically people in Vietnam like products coming from the US, in terms of grapes we import black seedless grapes and autumn royal grapes. Right now we have not yet done business with grapes from other Asian countries such as Japan or South Korea. Trade with South Africa has also been doing well. Its quality and number of varieties have been increasing year on year and it is very fitting that its grape season peaks right before Chinese New Year.”
In terms of apples, Vietnam usually imports from New Zealand, France or the US. “We get different varieties of apples. From the USA we get red apples, ambrosia and royal gala apples. While from France we also get red and gala apples and we also are the exclusive distributor of Juliet apples. We’ve been importing more from France because their products are 10-15% cheaper than that of the US.”
“Right now prices and sales for apples and grapes have been stable. We are looking to import apples from Korea as well as strawberries and apples from Japan. We’ve also just recently gotten the go signal to start importing cherries from Australia and kiwifruit from France,” says Chuc when asked about the future of the fruit importation landscape in Vietnam.
