VietNamNet Bridge – Even though Vietnam has hundreds of varieties of rice, many housewives in HCM City still prefer rice products labeled with foreign names such as Thai fragrant rice, American scented rice or Japanese rice.
Foreign labelled rice products are displayed in the first row of a rice shop in Saigon. The owners of many rice stores said that rice products with foreign labels are named by the stores or derived from imported varieties.
Foreign rice is cheaper than domestic rice
In the morning of July 16, at a rice shop on Cach Mang Thang Tam Road, District 10, Ho Chi Minh City, Ms. Nhung bought 10kg of Thai scented rice for VND15,000 per kilo. Nhung was also offered 1kg sugar and 1 bag of spice powder and several small things for free.
Nhung said her family had used Thai rice for many years. Previously, when the family’s income was low, they used ordinary rice varieties, priced around VND10,000-VND11,000 per kilo.
At the Saigon rice shop on Bui Dinh Tuy Road, Binh Thanh District, rice with foreign names like Thai fragrant rice, America scented rice, Taiwanese rice, Japanese rice … were displayed in the two first rows.
Mr. Tu, the shop owner, said all the rice varieties in the shop were imported from a rice milling company in Tien Giang province, which were produced by farmers in the Mekong Delta.
“Rice traders bought rice from farmers, then sold to milling companies. These companies processed rice and sold to rice distributors like us. These varieties of rice are not imported at all,” Tu said.
Rice with foreign labels are priced from VND13,500 to VND15,000 per kilo. Meanwhile, the prices for Vietnamese fragrant rice products such as nang thom, cho dao, tam thom, thai nguyen are more expensive, from VND18,000 to VND20,000 per kilo.
Experts said that the rice with foreign names are actually the rice with imported varieties such as Jasmine, VD20, etc. However, after a period of time being planted in Vietnam, these varieties have been partially degraded.
Vietnamese rice brands are the underdogs
As the leading rice exporter in the world, with more than 7 million tons per year, Vietnam has not had any famous rice brand even in the local market.
Dr. Mai Thanh Phung, from the HCM City National Agricultural Extension Centre, said that not only rice sold at private shops, even at supermarkets, Vietnamese rice is not packed with official brands or stamps.
Phung added that Vietnam has a lot of rice varieties but it lacks the rice brands of reputation, with stable quality, productivity which are attractive to consumers.
Mr. Nguyen Tho Tri – Deputy General Director of the Southern Food Corporation (Vinafood II) said that besides the lack of good varieties of rice, the current rice varieties of Vietnam are quickly degrading so it is impossible to build strong brands.
“In many cases, international customers praised the quality of a rice variety of Vietnam but when they offered to buy more, that rice variety was no longer in use. For example, the variety of aromatic rice ST was launched just a few years ago but now farmer are planting the ST 20 variety. Previously, Vietnam had IR 84 rice variety with good quality, which was favored by foreign customers but this variety has no longer used,” said Tri.
The familiar rice brands like nang thom, cho dao, tai nguyen, nang huong are produced in small quantity. Moreover, these specialty rice products are usually mixed with ordinary rice so their quality is reduced.
Tien Phong
Đăng ký: VietNam News