The opening ceremony of the fruit depot of Ben Tre on October 31 (Photo: VNA) Ben Tre (VNS/VNA) - Wholesaler Mega Market Vietnam (MM) on October31 launched its first fruit depot in Ben Tre province to supply quality fruitsand vegetables for both export and local markets.
Phidsanu Pongwatana, managing director of MM Mega Market Vietnam, said thefruit platform in Ben Tre would supply safe and quality fruit products for MM’s19 stores across the country.
“This depot will also be an export base for Vietnamese fruit to Thailand, Chinaand other Southeast Asian countries,” he added.
Along with fruits as the core supply, the Ben Tre platform will also serve as astockpile for vegetables and fruits in the Mekong Delta and surroundingprovinces.
“Situated at a prime location, the depot will help MM ensure a smooth flow ofvegetable and fruit from Mekong Delta source areas to MM stores as fast and ascost-effectively as possible, while keeping products fresh all the way,” hesaid.
“MM customers can now trace the origin of fresh food products even moreeasily,” Phidsanu added.
Ben Tre base is a joint operation between MM Mega Market Vietnam and Huong Phu SaVegetables and Foods JSC.
Under the partnership, Huong Phu Sa Vegetables and Foods will work with MM’squality control and purchasing agents, and cooperate with farmers, cooperativesand suppliers to select qualified food products to go through the depot forpre-processing and packaging.
More than 60 different types of fruits, including mainstream categories such asgrapefruit, Thai coconut, pineapple, melon, lemon, King orange, and mango,among others, will be selected from concentrated source areas in Mekong Deltaprovinces.
In the beginning, the Ben Tre Fruit Platform is projected to run about 15tonnes throughput per day. In the second phase next year, the depot’s capacitywill increase to about 50 tonnes per day.
Following the model of the Da Lat Vegetable Platform, the Ben Tre depot willenlist about 100 farming households, mostly in Mekong Delta provinces,including Ben Tre, Tien Giang, Can Tho, Long An, Tra Vinh, Vinh Long and DongThap.
MM agricultural engineers will work firsthand with local farmers andcooperatives, from seed selection to production planning, harvesting, packagingand hauling to the Ben Tre platform, without going through middlemen.
Farming households joining the loop will need to maintain a farm logbook andrecord in detail how they use pesticides. They will also be asked to keep ajournal of harvesting work, and conduct periodic quality testing in accordancewith MM Mega Market Vietnam’s standards.
MM launched a pork platform last year, a Can Tho fish platform in 2011, and a DaLat vegetable platform in 2008.
MM Mega Market Vietnam (formerly Metro Cash & Carry Vietnam) started itswholesale operations locally in 2002 and now has 19 stores in the country, withmore than 3,300 employees. — VNS/VNA
VNA
