The international food giant known for such brands as Cadbury, Nabisco
and Oreo has announced plans for a major investment in Vietnam’s booming coffee
industry.
Mondelez International said it
would invest in a programme at least $200 million in Vietnam, Indonesia and
India to empower one million local coffee farmers by 2020, with an estimated
number of 100,000 from Vietnam.
The firm said its “Coffee Made
Happy” initiative in Vietnam was designed to train farmers in environmentally
sustainable techniques, improve their livelihood and attract a new generation
back to the small-scale farming sector.
“Coffee Made Happy is a bold,
industry-changing move, and we think it’s achievable,” said Mondelez’s
Sustainable Supply Chains Division’s director Neil La Croi. “This is the right
thing to do for farmers, for the environment, and for our business. Together,
we can help make coffee farming an attractive profession for generations to
come.”
Mondelez declined to disclose the
amount it would invest in Vietnam. While the name Mondelez remains unfamiliar
in Vietnam, the company operates in 80 countries and boasts annual revenues of
$36 billion. Its brands also include Jacobs coffee, Milka chocolate, Tang
powdered beverages and Trident gums.
Under its new programme, Mondelez
would in 2013 open a coffee farmer training centre in Vietnam’s Central
Highlands Dak Lak province, known as Vietnam’s coffee kingdom.
Mondelez said Coffee Made Happy
aimed to raise farmer productivity and the viability of small-scale coffee
farming, strengthening agricultural practices and helping to build more
sustainable coffee communities.
Mondelez is already collaborating
in sustainable agriculture with partners like Rainforest Alliance, an
international nonprofit organisation dedicated to the conservation of tropical
forests, and the 4C Association, which is a global platform bringing together
stakeholders in the coffee sector to address sustainability issues in a
pre-competitive manner.
“By continuing these
relationships and fostering new collaborations, the company will boost existing
commercial skills development programmes in Vietnam and other important coffee
markets,” Croi said.
Vietnam, a minor coffee exporter
15 years ago, now rivals Brazil as a world leader of coffee exports in terms of
both volume and value.
According to a US consulting firm
working with Mondelez to seek investment opportunities in Vietnam, this project
is attractive to the country’s coffee industry because Vietnam’s coffee
plantations tend to become older and older, with decreasing quality, while many
coffee growers lack experience and investment capital.
Thanh Tung | vir.com.vn
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