Opportunities in the Chinese market are opening wide for Vietnamese passion fruit, yet product quality and traceability remain the keys if sustainable export is desired.

When the Chinese market officially opened its doors for Vietnamese passion fruit for official export, this crop stood before a powerful breakthrough opportunity. Not merely stopping at exporting fresh fruit, deeply processed products from passion fruit are also full of potential, contributing to elevating value for producers.

Major opportunities from the market of billions

In recent years, China has emerged as a leading passion fruit and passion fruit product consumer market in the region. With a population scale of over 1.4 billion people along with the robust development of the food and beverage (F&B) industry, China's demand for raw materials from passion fruit is increasingly surging high.

In internal regions of China, a series of modern milk tea, coffee, and beverage chains such as Mixue, Chagee, or Heytea are expanding at rapid speeds. The boom of the F&B industry pulls along a massive demand for processed fruit raw materials, including frozen passion fruit juice.

If previously Vietnam's passion fruit exports to China primarily concentrated on fresh fruit, now deeply processed products are gradually affirming positions. Frozen passion fruit juice possesses a long preservation time, facilitates convenient transportation, and concurrently satisfies the large-scale raw material demands of factories and beverage chains.

Ms. Vo Tran Bich Hanh, Director of Sesan Gia Lai Agriculture One Member Company Limited, evaluated that China is a market possessing very large growth room for processed products from passion fruit.

According to Ms. Hanh, Vietnam's largest advantage is being situated close to China; goods can be transported by reefer containers via road or sea within a short time, helping significantly cut logistics costs. This is an important factor to raise the competitive edge of passion fruit products.

“Compared to many traditional markets such as South Korea, Singapore, or Taiwan, China is still evaluated as superior regarding consumption scale as well as the capacity to increase orders in the future. Particularly, the two countries signing protocols on official export has created a clearer and more transparent legal corridor for commercial activities,” Ms. Hanh shared.

Gia Lai province possesses multiple advantages to utilize the opportunity of exporting passion fruit to China. Gia Lai currently has thousands of hectares of passion fruit concentrated in localities such as Mang Yang, Dak Doa, Chu Pah, Ia Grai, and a number of neighboring areas. Favorable climate and soil conditions help passion fruit trees grow well, yielding high productivity and stable fruit quality.

Particularly, the participation of many large processing and exporting enterprises like Nafoods Group, Doveco, Quicornac… has formed linked production chains, contributing to creating relatively stable outlets for citizens. This serves as an important foundation for the Gia Lai passion fruit commodity sector to head toward the goal of conquering the Chinese market more deeply in the coming time.

Gia Lai currently has approximately more than 5,600 hectares of passion fruit, with an output estimated at over 213,000 tons/year. Within this, more than 1,150 hectares are produced according to VietGAP standards with 48 export growing area codes and 6 packing facilities granted codes. Gia Lai passion fruit has currently been exported to multiple markets such as China, the EU, the US, Japan, and South Korea… under the forms of fresh fruit, frozen juice, and concentrated juice.

Standardizing raw material zones to firmly maintain markets

Despite being evaluated as a potential market, China currently is no longer an easy market as it was many years ago. Requirements regarding plant quarantine, traceability, food safety, and product quality are increasingly being tightened.

Ms. Vo Tran Bich Hanh stated that China has long ceased to be an easy market. Plant quarantine stages at border gates are currently maintained at strict levels. Therefore, to guarantee that large volumes of export goods meet standards, proactively building and expanding clean raw material zone systems granted growing area codes at key passion fruit areas such as the Central Highlands, Son La, and even neighboring Laos is a prerequisite step.

“Thanks to proactively securing clean raw material sources, the factory currently maintains a passion fruit processing capacity of about 100 tons/day and night, thereby ensuring the export of a minimum of 15 containers each month. We also regularly welcome Chinese partners to visit and monitor production processes at the food safety-standard compliant factory. This is not only a way to transparentize the supply chain process and raise reliability but also affirms our long-term product supply capacity,” Ms. Hanh shared.

Also according to Ms. Hanh, against the backdrop where international trade increasingly tightens, formality and a quality mindset are no longer slogans but have become mandatory requirements for Vietnamese passion fruit juice to confidently affirm its position in the Chinese market.

According to evaluations by Nafoods Group Joint Stock Company, the consumption demand for tropical fruits in the Chinese market is rising sharply, opening up major opportunities for Vietnamese passion fruit. However, along with the opening of the market, China also tightens requirements on growing area codes, traceability, and controlling plant protection drug residues.

Meanwhile, passion fruit production currently still relies primarily on small, fragmented farming households, with un-synchronized cultivation processes harboring multiple risks regarding quality. Besides, diseases on passion fruit trees, particularly virus-induced diseases and brown spots, are significantly affecting productivity and the capacity to satisfy export standards.

To resolve this equation, Nafoods Group has built linked production chains tied to consumption in Gia Lai. Currently, this enterprise links production with 37 cooperatives and more than 1,400 households on an area of approximately over 2,000 hectares of passion fruit, yielding an average productivity of 34 tons/ha.

Mr. Nguyen Man Hung, General Director of Nafoods Group, stated that the difference of the linkage model is that the enterprise not only purchases products but also accompanies citizens right from the beginning of the crop season. The technical team regularly guides farmers on cultivation processes, pest management, and the correct utilization of fertilizers and plant protection drugs against regulations. Thereby step-by-step raising the proportion of products satisfying export standards.

In parallel with technical support activities, Nafoods Group also steps up the application of digital technology in raw material zone management. Through the Smart Farm platforms and the NAGRI application, the entire production data from growing zones is digitized and updated regularly. The system allows tracking the cultivation process, alerting about weather and pests, and concurrently supporting traceability down to each production household.

“This is an important solution helping to transparentize the agricultural supply chain, satisfying the increasingly strict requirements of the Chinese market, while raising the competitive capacity for Vietnamese passion fruit in the international market,” Mr. Hung shared.

Source: Bao Nong nghiep va Moi truong