According to Le Van Duc, deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s (MARD) Department of Crop Production, the pepper price is predicted to continue decreasing in 2019 and following years because of the foreseeable increase in global output. Vietnam alone has total output of 300,000 tons.

The pepper price dropped to $2 per kilogram from the $10 per kilogram in 2015.

Meanwhile, the report of the Department of Farm Produce Processing and Market Development showed that pepper exports are on the rise, but the value is decreasing. This is because the pepper price has been sliding in recent years.

There are about 200 enterprises that process and trade pepper.

The pepper industry is facing problems in quality and price. Deep processing and product diversification are expected to help solve the problems.

Analysts say that the demand for pepper products is still high and pepper not only is used in food processing but also in health care, cosmetics and pharmacy.

Vietnam has been striving to increase productivity, but the quality remains low. As a result, the value is not high and Vietnam exports have to compete with rivals in price in the low-cost market segment.

The current pepper processed products include black, white and powdered pepper.

Many problems still exist in organizing GAP production and ensuring food hygiene and safety. In other words, farmers and enterprises still cannot take full advantage of the potential available.

According to the Import/Export Department, in order to develop the pepper industry in a sustainable way, it is necessary to restructure and diversify pepper products to meet the market’s high quality requirements, such as organic and red pepper.

According to Nguyen Nam Hai, chair of the Vietnam Pepper Association, 8 tons of oil can be created from 100 tons of pepper materials, which can bring 6 times higher value than preliminary processing.

Therefore, in addition to the solutions of developing sustainable material growing area, compatible processing system, and reduction in the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide, strengthening deep processing is a must to improve the value of Vietnam’s pepper.

In an effort to increase the value of pepper, Phuc Sinh Group has launched two new products - cold dried pepper and pepper source with K PEPPER brand.

Phan Minh Thong, chair of Phuc Sinh, said there are not many pepper-made products in the spice industry. If Vietnam can diversify products, the value it can expect would be very high.

Black pepper, for example, is exported at $2.500 per ton, while cold dried pepper is $14,000-18,000 per ton, or 6 times more expensive than raw exports.

Thanh Lich 

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