Businesses suffer heavy losses, worried about losing orders
Informing Thanh Nien, Ms. Dinh Anh Minh, Director of AIKA Group Company (in Tsukuba City, Ibraki Province, Japan), said that in early August, her company bought 2 packages with 13 fresh durians imported from Vietnam to bring to retail stores. Of those, only 1 durian was ripe, 2 were completely unripe, 2 were unripe and could not ripen, the rest had cracked shells, sour flesh, and 4-5 segments could only be peeled to get 1-2 segments. "Importing fresh fruit and having to peel and sell the segments, I could only recover 20% of the capital," Ms. Minh said.
Vietnamese durian exported to Japan is cut prematurely, causing the flesh to rot and become unripe, causing import businesses to lose capital and customers.
Having imported Vietnamese fruits for distribution in the Japanese market for many years, Ms. Le Thi Kieu Oanh, Director of Apple LCC Company (with office located in Tokyo, Japan), also "got stuck" with a shipment of young durian, causing this business to suffer heavy losses and lose customers.
According to Ms. Oanh, the shipment of 2.1 tons of durian imported from Vietnam cost 210,000 VND/kg. When arriving in Japan, all the goods were distributed to the retail stores that had pre-ordered them. After a few days of delivery, the partners repeatedly called to complain that the durians were not ripe, the ripe fruit had undercooked flesh, was not sweet, and had a sour smell... After that, the company had to recall all the durians for inspection, and 70% of them were rotten. "For this shipment alone, we lost 300 million VND. After many negotiations, the Vietnamese partner agreed to share 50% of the loss, but the biggest loss was the loss of trust and reputation with partners and consumers in Japan," Ms. Oanh said.
Ms. Oanh shared that although she really wants to support the consumption of agricultural products for her hometown, if compared to Thai durian, Vietnamese goods are of unstable quality and pose great risks. "The import price of Thai and Vietnamese durian is often the same, but if we make Thai goods, we can rest assured about the quality and design. Previously, we imported 2 tons of durian from Vietnam by air every week, but after the recent incident, we could not keep customers so we had to reduce production to 1 ton. In the near future, if we can choose a more stable fruit, we will stop making fresh durian," Ms. Oanh said.
There needs to be regulations on durian quality standards to compete and maintain the export market.
Price chaos, quality chaos
Sharing with Thanh Nien but requesting anonymity, Ms. NTT, owner of a company in Tien Giang specializing in exporting durian to China, said that the durian market is in chaos due to price chaos leading to quality chaos. Not only in Japan, the Chinese market recently had many shipments of rotten durian that could not ripen when cut too early.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has sent delegations to inspect localities to thoroughly handle the situation of cutting and selling young durian, violations of growing area codes, and packaging facilities during the durian export season from now until the end of the year.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hoang Trung
According to Ms. T., unripe durian is a "one-cut" product. Because there are times when prices are high, traders buy up goods strongly, garden owners take advantage of selling goods to "drive" prices by cutting the garden clean in one go, so the percentage of unripe fruit is very high. Not to mention, if any business is inexperienced, cutting durian right after it rains, the flesh will be hard and not sweet; they have to wait a few days for the moisture in the segments to evaporate, then cutting the goods will make the durian segments drier and sweeter.
Ms. T. added that the current chaotic situation in the quality of exported durians, with competition in buying and selling, is partly due to the greed of garden owners and traders; however, the main responsibility lies with export packaging facilities. "If packaging facilities strictly control the source of goods and do not accept poor quality shipments, how can traders dare to buy unripe goods and garden owners let unripe fruits be cut and sold?" Ms. T. said.
Ms. Ngo Tuong Vy, General Director of Chanh Thu Fruit Import-Export Company (Ben Tre), expressed that after many years of preparation and hard negotiations, Vietnamese durian has just had an export protocol to China. In the first year of official export, instead of being happy and excited, the durian industry faced many fluctuations, insecurity and anxiety when it was continuously warned of violations of plant quarantine and product quality.
The biggest problem of the Vietnamese durian industry today is that there are no regulations to control quality. While looking at Thailand, farmers are trained very carefully about the cultivation process, from the time the tree flowers and releases pistils, they have to record, tie a string to mark, when the time is right, the fruit must be cut and checked, if the quality is guaranteed, then it is allowed to be cut and sold to businesses. Because of this management method, Thai durian has consistent quality.
Selling unripe durian in Thailand could result in jail time
In an effort to curb the harvesting and sale of unripe durians, Thailand has declared it a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has told durian growers, harvesters and traders that it is illegal to sell durians that are not fully developed. The ministry has instructed the Department of Agricultural Extension and provincial agriculture offices in Trat, Chanthaburi and Rayong provinces – Thailand’s major durian growing areas – to ensure that only ripe durians are harvested.
"We always wish that state management agencies would build a large database to manage durian trees from growing area codes, output, and packaging facilities to make all information transparent. Along with that are regulations on mandatory quality standards, with sanctions for violations so that gardeners must comply. At that time, businesses will no longer have to "beg" farmers to maintain quality; the current mindset of cutting and selling young products to get high prices, and traders collecting young products to keep up with the market, will be eliminated. All must comply with the general principles of quality standards to build the national brand of Vietnamese durian," said Ms. Vy.
Speaking to Thanh Nien, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hoang Trung said that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has also received feedback from export enterprises about durian being cut prematurely, of poor quality, and being spoiled when arriving at the import market and having to be discarded. Although the quantity of these shipments is not much, it has a very negative impact on the reputation and image of Vietnamese durian. The export value is very large, the consumption output is relatively stable, so the biggest problem of the durian industry is to maintain a stable and sustainable export market and determine to compete with other countries by quality, not by quantity.
"The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has been very aware of the problems of the durian industry and has requested units to urgently develop cultivation processes and standards for harvesting durians that must meet requirements on size, color, and quality, and not have a "one-knife harvest" style, cutting off all young or old fruits, which will damage the reputation and brand of Vietnamese durian in export markets," said Mr. Trung.
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