Nov 5, 2011

Vietnam - Dutch Lady grows in symbiosis with Vietnamese community



For many multinational companies, Vietnam is regarded as a potential market and they keep rushing into the country to make profits. However, for some others, economic benefits are not enough and are just part of their business as they set a target growth in the country by creating shared values for the community where they operate.

FrieslandCampina Vietnam or Dutch Lady is a case in point.

From the three core societal needs

Rather than looking for increasing annual revenue and profit, the dairy company has set its long-term business development on the basis of win-win cooperation with local people through different programs. Mark Boot, Managing Director of FrieslandCampina Vietnam, concluded that their “growth has been established in symbiosis with the Vietnamese society.”

From its start in 1995, the company has committed to sustainable business development in the country, basing the way of doing business on three core societal needs. That is to help local dairy farmers to achieve sustainable dairy farming, to offer consumers a broad range of milk-based beverages and child nutrition to improve the nutritional quality and enhance the nutritional awareness to improve health and stature of Vietnamese people, and to raise education quality in Vietnam with a study encouragement fund.

For sustainable farming, the diary company has invested US$13 million to support local farmers, through its Dairy Development Program (DDP), to improve farm productivity and produce high quality milk. Through its DDP, the company has established a comprehensive milk collection system, quality control and incentive milk payment systems in the rural areas where local farmers could have a secure milk outlet for their farm milk product. With those efforts, the company gradually replaces the imported milk with domestic milk products. By this way, the DDP has created stable jobs and income for people in the rural areas.

Says Boot: “For the Dairy Development Program, we organized the best-in-class dairy development support to help Vietnamese dairy farmers for a sustainable dairy farming. We apply the dairy quality management method “From grass to glass” to ensure product’s quality and hygienic conditions, purchase milk directly from farmers, and pay higher for better quality. We are keen on encouraging and supporting farmers to improve milk quality.”

Annually, the company has invested US$1 million in the program in training, technology transfer for farmers, the establishment of a complete controlling system, and encouraging investment in using bio gas system among others, he adds.

Besides cooperating with the National Institute for Nutrition to do some research about nutrition for children, FrieslandCampina Vietnam has set one step further, to societal involvement, in education through the Den Dom Dom Study Encouragement Fund, which carries a message saying “Sharing is Happiness”. Some VND30 billion has been set aside to offer 20,000 scholarships to needy children and to build eight new schools in remote areas that help needy students overcome their difficulties so that they can continue their schooling.

… to other shared values

Bearing in mind the mission to improve life quality and a hope to create shared value for consumers and the community, FrieslandCampina Vietnam has invested a lot of money in many activities, which contributes to some extent significant business growth to the country.

FrieslandCampina has invested over US$135 million to develop and upgrade facilities in Vietnam, as well as to expand production and improve technology and management system of its two milk plants in the southern province of Binh Duong and in the northern province of Ha Nam.

With its current dairy plants in the country, FrieslandCampina Vietnam can supply the market with over 1.5 billion units of milk every year, offering Vietnamese consumers a wide range of quality dairy products and daily nutrition under brand names Dutch Lady, Friso, Fristi and YoMost.

Further, FrieslandCampina Vietnam, like its parent company in the Netherlands, values human relationships. “Our employees are a core asset and we cherish long-term relationships with our distributors, customers, suppliers, partners and stakeholders,” Boot says. That can be seen through its cooperation network at different levels throughout the country.

FrieslandCampina Vietnam has cooperated with some 150 distributors, some 700 local suppliers, some 2,400 farms and individual farmers and over 100,000 retailers around the country. The business collaboration directly and indirectly generates over 15,000 jobs.

Good business performance in the past 15 years is recognized through thousands of billions of dong the company contributed to the State budget via tax payment. FrieslandCampina Vietnam has paid some US$200 million, and is one of the companies paying the biggest tax sum in the country.

For FrieslandCampina Vietnam, these are big results that the program has achieved after 15 years of operations. Therefore, the spirit of social responsibility is spread widely and become the culture of business, annual activities, and long-term commitment for the benefits of business and society.

Dang Le - The Saigon Time Daily



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