Bring Central Highlands fruits to international consumers

At the Forum “Connecting production and consumption of agricultural products and OCOP products in the Central Highlands region in 2021” on the morning of September 25th, many ideas were presented to increase the attractiveness of agricultural products in this region.

Promote branding

According to Mr. Paul Le, representative of Central Retail, in order to connect to the five Central Highlands provinces, the supermarket system will support all OCOP products and bring them to Vietnamese consumers. The Central Highlands is also the home of many top products in the world, so the enterprise will support manufacturers in terms of packaging and branding to help them better approach foreign customers.

“The Central Highlands provinces are a major supply source of Central Retail's supermarkets in terms of fresh and processed products. We have had a lot of activities to promote the region’s products to Central Retail's headquarters in Thailand,” Mr. Paul Le added.

In the future, Central Retail will build more shopping malls for the “GO!” brand to help Southeast Asian consumers gain access to Vietnamese products and vice versa.

Sharing more deeply about the domestic market, Ms. Vu Thi Hau, Chairwoman of the Association of Vietnam Retailers (AVR) said that many products of the Central Highlands are specialties and are present in many large supermarkets across the country, but she wants the locality to be more actively involved so retailers can work directly with manufacturers and make products more accessible to consumers.

“Retailers always welcome manufacturers with open doors to bring products to consumers. But both sides need a closer connection, especially in the context of the epidemic situation so that they can sell multi-channel products and bring the best products to the market," said Ms. Vu Thi Hau.

In addition, Ms. Hau also mentioned building regional OCOP booths to make it easier for consumers to access products, especially when the Central Highlands has many signature OCOP products available.

Expanding the model of agro-product purchasing and transshipment stations

According to Ms. Tran Kim Nga, Public Relations Manager of Mega Market, the five Central Highlands provinces are a large source of supply for Mega Market's supermarkets at the moment.

To increase the efficiency of the linkage Mega Market is coordinating with Lam Dong to establish a local purchasing and transshipment station, work directly with farmers by committing to output and products from the seed selection to harvest throughout so as to attain fresh, high-quality, and safe products.

“Mega Market's agricultural technicians will work at the station with farmers to ensure sustainable development, harvest good products, and meet Mega Market's consumption and export demand. This is a great and successful model since Mega Market can work and help farmers in the production process,” said Ms. Tran Kim Nga.

Working with localities, the Public Relations Manager of Mega Market hopes to cooperate with all parties to achieve sustainable development so that farmers can be assured of their output, surely have their products consumed after harvesting.