Vietnamese consumers are willing to spend more money on 'safe' food

Meanwhile, prestigious meat suppliers and importers have yet to market organic meat.

The manager of a food shop in district 2 in HCM City said that most of the domestic meat products available at high-end shops are pork, chicken and beef from animals farmed in a traditional way. Products still cannot meet the standards set for ‘organic’ food. 

However, the meat is still 20 to 100 percent more expensive than the meat of animals farmed on an industrial scale, because consumers believe the meat is ‘cleaner’ and ‘safer’.

Only a few products have certificates on organic meat, such as AusFarm (meeting Canadian standards) and Acres beef imports (Australian standards).

NTK, director of a meat import company in HCM City, said meat products advertised as ‘organic’ now available in the market are probably not organic.

“The organic meat supply is limited. The number of farms which have certificates on organic farming is very small. The supply is short, production costs are high and meat is mostly consumed on the spot,” he explained.

“I asked some retailers about certificates, but they gave ambiguous answers,” he said, warning that the products may be not organic.

Consumers have been well aware of the risk. 

Tran Hong Ha, a housewife in Hai Ba Trung district in Hanoi, said she doesn’t intend to buy organic meat available at shops, because ‘no one is sure it is really organic, and it is too expensive’.

Phan Thi Hong Quyen, co-founder of Solomon International in HCM City, which specializes in importing products from organic milk, plans to import organic meat for domestic sale as the demand is high.

However, she said importers will have to follow complicated procedures. The foreign exporters will have to be inspected and licensed by Vietnamese management agencies. 

Some domestic investors are running organic farms, but are still seeking certificates. A big enterprise in the livestock industry has been reportedly following organic farming for many years, but has not succeeded.

Vinamit is one of a few companies which have certificates on organic meat in accordance with US and European standards. Vinamit’s CEO Nguyen Lam Vien has confirmed that the company is still in the preparation stage before launching products into the market.

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