And instead of the coffee mixed with soybeans and maize, consumers now want ‘only coffee’ products. This has prompted more roasters and café chains to set up. 

Thousands of cafes have been set up over the last three years. The owners of many startups also started opening cafés, such as Light Coffee, Shin Coffee, Phuc Nguyen, The Kaffein Coffee, Revo Coffee and 1864 CAFEs. 

They commit to sell ‘clean’, ‘pure’, and ‘organic coffee’. 

A coffee expert commented that the owners of the cafes are following a wise marketing strategy with the slogans, because consumers have high demand for organic products and refuse food they think are unsafe. 

In HCM City, cafes are equipped with large roasters to attract customers. The shops also sell roasted coffee beans or roasted coffee.

The Coffee House owned by Nguyen Hai Ninh, is the best known coffee chain with 100 shops across the countries developed in the last four years. Ninh said his chain serves 60,000 customers a day and coffee is the bestselling drink, accounting for 40 percent.

The market has witnessed the movement of instant coffee makers shifting to roasted coffee as they can see the great opportunities of the market. Trung Nguyen International, for example, is developing its roasted coffee brand King Coffee, while Nestcafe has Ca phe Viet (Vietnamese coffee). Phuc Sinh JSC, one of Vietnamese 10 biggest coffee exporters, has K Coffee brand.

Pure roasted coffee products with well-known brands are now priced between VND200,000 and VND500,000 per kilogram, while less prestigious home-made products are selling at VND150,000 per kilogram.

However, it is not easy to stay in the roasted pure coffee market. V.C.V, the owner of a roaster company in district 9, HCM City, admitted his company has reduced the production scale because of the difficulties of the market.

“Our products were available at many supermarkets, but the sales were bad. Real pure coffee has cockroach color and it is slightly sour. The majority of customers like black coffee with strong flavor,” he said.

Phuc SInh JSC’s chair Phan Minh Thong also said changing Vietnamese habits and tastes remains a big challenge for coffee roasters.

A report  shows that Vietnam imported 1 million bags of coffee (60,000 tons) in 2016-2017, an increase of 360,000 bags over the previous period. The  country is importing more coffee as demand from restaurants, hotels and shops has increased.

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