Agricultural products built trade names, facilitated to go further

 Products of Phuoc Thanh II Company are synthetic jasmine rice and jasmine rice to meet the consumers’ demand for traceability.

Going further away

Phuoc Thanh II Co. Ltd. (in Tan Khanh Ward, Tan An city, Long An province) specializes in producing and trading rice to serve the domestic market and export. Deputy Director of Phuoc Thanh II Company - Nguyen Tan Khoa shared that the company had focused on building trade names for products in recent years. To do this, the company invested a fairly modern production system with a capacity of 200 tons per day. In particular, the company focuses on the input source to have output quality synchronously. Accordingly, the company buys and consumes rice mainly in Long An, Tien Giang, Soc Trang, etc. With the viewpoint that the product must meet the consumers’ tastes, the company actively surveyed many regions and areas to find rice varieties favored by consumers for research and development in order to diversify products to serve consumers.

Currently, on average each year, the company produces and provides the markets with about 15,000 tons of rice and sticky rice of all kinds. In foreign markets, the company signed a contract with traders who are the owners of restaurant chains, students’ kitchens in Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. "Most of the products are fragrant sticky rice trusted by customers for years. Therefore, the price of the contract is very good, usually higher than ordinary rice from 200 USD per ton or more"- Mr. Khoa shared more.

If Phuoc Thanh Company focused on producing rice for foreign markets many years ago, it has continued to build its trade name for rice products to meet the domestic market since 2018. Currently, the Company has 2 product types that consumers choose and trust with the trade name of synthetic Jasmine rice and fragrant Jasmine rice. Both 2 product types are consumed at the chains of convenience stores, supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh city and sold online. Mr. Khoa said that these two types of rice are strictly controlled input and output, complying with regulations on food safety and hygiene, meeting the needs of consumers using originated and branded rice. 

Tan Kim Agricultural Production and Trade Cooperative (in Tan Dinh hamlet, Tan Kim commune, Can Giuoc district) currently has 12 members producing vegetables on an area of over 3 hectares and many affiliated members. Director of the Cooperative - Nguyen Thi Ngoc Bau shared that all the official and affiliated members produced under VietGAP standard with 17 kinds of vegetables, tubers and fruits. Every day, the cooperative provides 1 ton of products to the market through many supermarkets such as Co.op, Lotte, Mega, Satra, etc.

Ms. Ngoc Bau said that Can Giuoc is blessed with good climate and soil to produce vegetables, especially herbs, leafy vegetables with typical flavors, which are distributed by retailers in Ho Chi Minh city highly appreciated. Only in Tan Kim, nature is more favorable in planting Egyptian Luffa and pennywort with a unique delicious aroma. Pennywort cultivated in Tan Kim has very small leaves, only with the size of the thumb but very brittle, used to eat raw or processed into soft drinks such as mashed pennywort or mashed pennywort with green peas. Every day, the cooperative produces about 70 kilos, but it is not enough to meet the demand, all of them are consumed in supermarkets. In addition, the cooperative also sells pennywort to a group of students in Ho Chi Minh City for implementing a startup project through the beverage business.

Egyptian Luffa products of Tan Kim cooperative

Still facing difficulties

According to Ngoc Bau, because 2 products of Egyptian Luffa and pennywort are very characteristic, the cooperative wants to build trade names, so whenever people mention Tan Kim, everyone must know. Currently, these 2 products are very popular in the market and the prices are quite good. On average, for each kilogram of pennywort, the cooperative purchased from its members more than 30,000 VND. Despite being trusted by consumers, members planting pennywort are not many due to many reasons, including the most difficult in the dry months, farmers lack irrigation water leading to reduced output. In addition, some farmers still have traditional concepts and farming practices, not yet applying technological advances to improve production in the same area.

According to the plan, in 2020, the cooperative will coordinate with the district agricultural sector to organize training and guidance for farmers to apply technological advances in production to produce high-quality products and good products to meet the market needs. Ngoc Bau had the greatest desire to build a brand for two typical products of the cooperative so that many people know and encourage farmers to produce in the market-oriented, sustainable output, becoming special products. In the case of Tan Kim commune, it creates a high income for the people.

Mr. Khoa also shared that Long An is one of the localities with high rice export volume in the Mekong River Delta region, but many businesses wonder that rice exports still do not have many brands that are mainly packed according to importer requirements. Because there is no brand, when exporting to big markets, competitiveness, especially in the price of Vietnamese rice is not high. The cause, the chain participation from production, processing to marketing, distribution and consumption is limited. In addition, there are still many businesses that hold the view to sell as many goods as possible.

In order to increase the competitiveness of agricultural products in the market, over the past time, the Department of Science and Technology supported through establishing collective trademark ownership for cooperatives in the province. Accordingly, the cooperative is supported in designing trademark samples, looking up trademarks, developing regulations on the use of collective marks, filing applications and pursuing collective trademark applications at the Intellectual Property Office freely. In addition, the Department of Crop Production, Plant Protection and Agricultural Quality Management under the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development support cooperatives and businesses to build safe food supply chains and traceable stamps. This is to help businesses link production along the chain from the initial production stage to preliminary processing, processing, packaging, transportation and trading of foodstuff with the logo so that consumers can identify safe products.

If the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Agriculture and Development focuses on supporting businesses and cooperatives to build a trade name. Department of Industry and Trade will focus on promoting trade promotion for branded agricultural products. According to the Director of the Department of Industry and Trade - Le Minh Duc, the Department always gives priority to introducing and promoting trade of branded products, meeting all food safety standards. There have been many products of cooperatives and businesses in the province are participating in the supply chain of goods in large quantities in Ho Chi Minh city as well as the chain of convenience stores, collective kitchens such as Phuoc Thinh Cooperative, Long An Food Company, Mecofood, Ben Ke Cooperative, Thuan Giau Cooperative, Phuoc Hoa Cooperative, etc. Since then, products made from cooperative members always keep prices, stable outputs and high income.

Also according to Mr. Le Minh Duc, building trade name for products is the mission of cooperatives, businesses and active support from state agencies. This is to create sustainable value for agricultural products and must be linked to the geographical indications typical of each locality, further than the national level. Thereby, it creates a difference, improves the brand value of products in competition in the domestic market, further develops brand for export products to gradually dominate foreign markets.

By Mai Huong - Translated by Duc Tam

Source: http://baolongan.vn/xay-dung-thuong-hieu-cho-nong-san-tao-dieu-kien-cho-san-pham-vuon-xa-a94573.html