MM Mega Market Vietnam honours 20 local farmers

Farmers were pleased with MM Mega Market Vietnam's appreciation

Launched in 2005, Dalat Vegetable Platform of MM has been recognised as one of the few food safety qualified facilities that supply a plenty of the best vegetables and fruits in Vietnam. Covering a 250-ha source area, every year, this depot delivers more than 12,000 tonnes of VietGAP qualified vegetables and fruits meeting consumers’ demand from MM storage system across the country.

Phidsanu Pongwatana, managing director of MM Mega Market Vietnam said, “To grow safe vegetable production and supply chains, MM has for many years emphasised to co-operate with farming households in Lam Dong province. One of things that we did well over the last decade is to train the farmers to produce vegetables and fruits by the highest safety standards. MM has carefully recruited quality farms and held training programmes, besides, our agricultural engineers work with the farmers every step of the way throughout the cultivate process.”

“We want to develop sustainable partnerships with local farmers on a ‘win-win’ basis, and numerous farmers have actually had more than a decade doing business with us. We believe that only when the farmers thrive, MM can prosper, too. Going forward, in order to move on with our plan of exporting to the 700-mall Big C system in Thailand, we will continue widening and intensifying partnerships with the local farmers to materialise our aim of doubling the current vegetable supply capacity and expanding production land to 400 hectares," added Pongwatana.

Farmers grow vegetables meeting VietGAP standards

As a trailblazer in setting up and growing sustainable farming supply chains, for over a decade, MM’s Dalat Vegetable Platform has not just offered consumers with a source of safe and quality food products, but also played an vital role in developing a local generation of modern farmers, who are qualified to meet the changing needs of farming in an economic integration age.

A farmer with 10-year plus partnership with MM, Nguyen Van Do from Don Duong district said, “One of the best benefits working with a big name like MM is that we have assurance for our output, which gives me confidence to invest in glass houses and advanced farming equipment. MM’s maintained outgrower scheme that offers specific quantity coverage and reliable prices gives us a worry-free opportunity to focus on production.”

Do also believed that working with MM has not only benefited him with economic gains but also helped him change his mindset toward doing business as a modern farmer, by reflecting market demand in production while learning to know best how to use crop protection substances by existing safety standards.

In pursuit of the objective of increasing exportation of Vietnamese agriproducts to other countries in the region, firstly the Thailand Big C system, with its 700 supermarkets and hypermarkets, MM is putting more efforts in developing its depot system.

VietGAP-qualitied vegetable will be distributed locally and will be exported

Recently, MM exported a first batch of more than 100 tonnes of Vietnamese farm products, including yellow sweet potato, purple sweet potato, dragon fruit, dried fruits and rice paper, to the 700-mall Big C system in Thailand, which has been welcome by local consumers. It is promising that agriproducts supplied by the farmers working with MM are not only sold in the MM’s domestic system, but also in Thailand and, in the not too distant future, other countries that MM is doing business in.

MM is now running three platforms believed to be the largest of their kinds in Vietnam - Da Lat Vegetable Platform, Can Tho Fish Platform and Dong Nai Pork Platform. At all these three depots, MM Mega Market has applied VietGAP standards in production and HACCP norms. Additionally, a fruit platform in Ben Tre is well underway to be launched soon by MM, with the main purpose of carrying out the company's plan of exporting Vietnamese fruits to Thailand.