Safe produce supply chain [2]: Market as anchor

When the green tick becomes an advantage

If the production side of the story is about doing things right, the market side is about making sure consumers can see and trust what has been done. In a landscape crowded with competing sales channels, transparency of information is becoming the deciding factor in shaping a viable, safe produce supply chain.

In Ho Chi Minh City, the responsible green-tick program has been rolled out as a recognition tool for products that meet transparency criteria. Nguyen Nguyen Phuong, deputy director of the city's Department of Industry and Trade, said participating businesses must make explicit commitments regarding origin, quality-control processes, and the maintenance of those standards throughout their operations.

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Safe produce supply chain [1]: Standardize from the source

The program has so far drawn in 12 distribution systems, with 5,497 products registered and 4,837 approved. A total of 520 suppliers have joined, of whom 406 have been confirmed to meet the requirements. Quality oversight has been tightened in parallel, with 1,302 products carrying supplier-provided test results and 263 products subject to post-market checks by distributors.

Nguyen Thanh Quang, a representative of a multi-sector agricultural cooperative in Dong Thap province, said monthly vegetable sales through Bach Hoa Xanh nearly doubled after joining the program, rising from around 5 tonnes to 9 tonnes. He said the cooperative had previously operated largely on experience and intuition, but participation brought distributor support to refine production processes, improve packaging and presentation, and secure better shelf placement. The result was stronger consumer reach and more stable sales.

From the distributor side, Vo Thi Bich Thuy, acting senior category manager at Saigon Co.op, said roughly 99 suppliers have joined with more than 2,000 registered products in the system. Sales figures for green-tick products have risen consistently, signaling that consumers are beginning to pay meaningful attention to product transparency. Thuy argued that the tick should not be seen as a compliance hurdle but as an opportunity for suppliers to build credibility and expand their footprint, particularly as more retail systems adopt the same framework. The program's value, she said, lies not in creating new standards but in verifying and communicating what businesses are already doing correctly.

Toward a common standard

Phuong acknowledged that the program's early rollout was uneven across distribution systems. But as more businesses have signed on, the tick's role as a market connector has grown more visible. "Some participants have developed very quickly, while others are still limited. The city is studying mechanisms to spread the program more evenly and build toward a shared platform for the whole market," he said.

One direction under active consideration is a five-star green-tick rating framework, modeled on the OCOP program for rural products. Under this approach, products reaching the highest tier would gain access to the full distribution network without needing to satisfy separate, retailer-specific requirements each time.

That model is intended to address what producers currently describe as a fragmented compliance landscape, where every retailer applies its own criteria and expanding to new channels means starting the verification process from scratch. A universally recognized common standard would allow a product to qualify once and circulate across multiple channels.

Dao Ha Trung, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Association, said the program's core value lies in its multi-party verification structure. When multiple distribution systems participate in assessment, quality control ceases to be a fragmented, one-off exercise and coalesces into a market-wide norm. "When a product is endorsed by several systems simultaneously, it is not just a quality guarantee; it functions like a passport that helps businesses open new markets," he said.

Alongside the certification framework, the expansion of the safe produce chain is also being advanced through community outreach. Ho Chi Minh City has launched a program called "Walking Alongside Clean Produce" to bring high-tech agricultural models and certified safe products closer to urban consumers. Through farmers markets and locally organized community activities, participating businesses commit to working alongside authorities to move certified produce directly from growing zones to residents. These events serve not only as supplementary sales channels but also as a means of cultivating green consumer habits and gradually broadening the market for standardized products.

The city's ambitions extend beyond the green-tick program itself. Ho Chi Minh City is developing a safe agricultural supply chain plan for 2026 to 2030, structured around three pillars: standardizing raw material-growing zones, deepening linkages with distribution systems, and developing market tools to ensure information transparency throughout the chain.

Under that framework, agricultural production will be reorganized along regional lines, with standards and traceability requirements built in from the start. On the consumption end, the city will encourage expansion of modern distribution networks while establishing direct-connection mechanisms between producers and retailers, reducing the number of intermediary layers that currently add cost and dilute accountability.