VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese once hoped to establish Vietnamese-style fast food chains powerful enough to compete with McDonald’s or KFC. However, the dream seems to be too fabulous.

Vietnamese ambitious to develop fast food chains…

The total fast food revenue in the Vietnamese market in 2011 was VND870 billion, an increase of 30 percent over 2010, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT).

The 30 percent annual growth rate of the fast food sector proves to be attractive to any investor, which explains why more and more foreign fast food chains have been set up in Vietnam.

In fact, Vietnamese investors also can see the great potentials of the domestic market and believe that a lot of Vietnamese dishes can be served as attractive fast food.  

Vietnamese dishes are believed to be in no way inferior to foreign French fries or fried chicken. Especially, pho (noodle soup) and bread, the traditional dishes, are especially fit the Vietnamese tastes.

However, despite the great advantages, Vietnam still does not have the fast food chains of global stature. Even though Vietnamese food is recognized as very good for people’s health with the reasonable nutrient content, no Vietnamese fast food brand has become global.

Analysts once affirmed that foreign fast food would not be able to cement their firm positions in Vietnam, because they did not serve the food Vietnamese wanted.

It is true that hamburgers were not really attractive to Vietnamese. However, contrary to all predictions, foreign styled fast food chains still can enjoy large custom. Vietnamese go there because these are the ideal places for entertainment and relax, especially on weekends.

Vietnamese once put a high hope on Pho 24, a pho chain. However, the Vietnamese brand has been sold to a foreigner for $20 million.

Meanwhile, the great efforts by Kinh Do Group, the most successful Vietnamese sweets manufacturer, to develop its fast food chain K-Do, have not brought the satisfactory achievements. Vietmac, a rice burger chain, remains unassertive in developing its chain. Vietmac shops do not enjoy large custom like the foreign invested shops.

… but incapable to do that

While Vietnamese fast food chains fail to attract customers, foreign chains have been prosperous.

Tran Thi Minh Hanh, Deputy Director of the HCM City Nutrition Center, noted that fast food is favored mostly by children or the youth, and that eating fast food may easily become a growing tendency among the Vietnamese young people. Meanwhile, fast food is not good to people’s health because it may cause the obesity.

She advised Vietnamese to choose xoi (steamed glutinous rice), bread or pho for fast food, because the traditional dishes are good to health, rather than the US styled fast food.

However, ignoring the advice, Vietnamese still flock to foreign fast food shops.

Burger King, which set foot in Vietnam in 2011, now has 29 shops. Bryson Thornton, a senior executive of Burger King Vietnam said the Vietnamese market is the key to the group’s global growth targets.

McDonald’s, which has just become present in Vietnam, also keeps optimistic about its business future here. Nguyen Bao Hoang, who brings McDonald’s to Vietnam, has stated that McDonald’s Vietnam would employ tens of thousands of workers in the future.

Mot The Gioi