Vietnamese pink fabric with red flag and yellow star brand arrives in UK

A ton of Vietnamese litchi (early ripening litchi) has just been imported into the UK by TT Meridian Company, becoming the first official export batch of litchi from Vietnam to the UK this year.

Pink fabric with the Vietnamese flag brand. (Source: VNA)

Mr. Thai Tran, CEO of TT Meridian Company, a company specializing in distributing lychees and Vietnamese agricultural products in the UK, said that this year, the company imported U Hong lychees for the first time to take advantage of this variety of lychee, which ripens about 1 month earlier than lychees, to compete with Mexican and Chinese lychees currently sold in the UK market.

The batch of U Hong lychees will be distributed to Asian and local supermarkets. It is expected that the company will import 3-5 tons of lychees to the UK each week, depending on consumption demand.

According to Mr. Thai, Meridian Center imported U Hong litchi before Mexican and Chinese litchis were harvested and imported to the UK to exploit the market early, creating an opportunity for Vietnamese litchis with good quality, sweet and fragrant taste, to approach and conquer consumers in the UK.

In particular, the U Hong lychee product distributed in the UK market this year has packaging bearing the image of the red flag with yellow star of Vietnam to help British consumers identify the national brand, creating the impression that lychee is a unique specialty of Vietnam.

Mr. Thai shared: "Starting this year, TT Meridian will use the packaging of Vietnamese products distributed in the UK with the image of the red flag with yellow star to build and promote the Vietnamese brand as a major producer and exporter of agricultural products in the world , helping consumers easily and quickly identify Vietnamese products on supermarket shelves in the UK.

The initiative to identify Vietnamese brands through the image of the red flag with a yellow star is one of the efforts of Meridian Center and its partners in Vietnam, including Kim Bien Fruit Processing Cooperative ( Bac Giang ), to innovate, create, and meet the constantly changing needs of the market as well as consumer habits and behaviors.

According to Mr. Nguyen Canh Cuong, Commercial Counselor, Vietnam Trade Office in the UK, a major challenge for exporting Vietnamese lychees to the UK is product preservation due to the nature of lychees that must be consumed within 3 days of harvest to ensure freshness, so export enterprises need to master post-harvest preservation technology.

Compared to imported products of the same type as well as other imported fruits, Vietnamese lychees currently have a quite high selling price in the UK (15 Pounds/kg, equivalent to 435,000 VND).

According to Mr. Cuong, the high price of lychees is partly due to the fact that this fruit must be transported by air at a cost of 3-4 pounds/kg to ensure freshness. Mr. Cuong believes that mastering preservation technology will allow exporting businesses to transport lychees by sea, helping to reduce product prices.

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