A Vinamilk product (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Vinamilk) has become a leading business in the local milk industry after four decades of development, and now is stretching its reach to global markets, Ha Noi Moi daily reported.
Vinamilk holds a 55-percent market share in Vietnam’s dairy industry, partly thanks to spending more than 6.5 trillion VND (291.3 million USD) on building highly automated factories over the last five years.
It now owns 10 farms and 13 factories in Vietnam, along with three plants in the US, New Zealand and Cambodia. It also has a subsidiary in Poland and is promoting the export of its products to new markets like Thailand, Myanmar and African countries.
Vinamilk CEO Mai Kieu Lien said her company raked in 5.3 trillion VND (about 242 million USD) in export turnover in 2015, a surge of 77 percent from the previous year and 800 percent from 1998.
The firm’s products have been sold in 43 countries around the world, including the Republic of Korea, Japan, China, Turkey, Russia, Canada, the US and Australia. It is working to make inroads in Europe, Africa and South America.
At the Summer Fancy Food Show in the US last July, Vinamilk and its subsidiary Driftwood Dairy Inc. introduced two condensed milk and cream products made in Vietnamese factories.
Those products satisfied strict regulations in the US and were recognised by the country’s Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture, affirming the standing of Vinamilk products, according to Ha Noi Moi.
The firm spent 10 million USD to purchase all the shares in the Driftwood factory – a leading milk producer in Northern California, the US. Driftwood earned 119 million USD in revenue in 2015, contributing 6.5 percent to Vinamilk’s total revenue.
Last May, the dairy maker inaugurated the Angkor milk factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It is expected to manufacture more than 19 million litres of liquid milk products, 64 million cups of yogurt and 80 million cans of condensed milk when at full capacity. The plant is expected to generate 54 million USD in revenue in 2017.
Meanwhile, the Miraka factory in New Zealand – Vinamilk’s first foreign invested project – was put into operation in August 2011. The company raised its ownership in the facility from 19.3 percent to 22.81 percent in 2015. Miraka has a milk powder processing line and another for pasteurised fresh milk.
In 2014, Vinamilk was licensed to open a subsidiary in Poland which produces materials for production activities of the parent company and other subsidiaries. This affiliate shipped abroad nearly 18,000 tonnes of milk powder worth 33 million USD in 2015.-VNA
