Retailers’ holiday hopes up after busy six weeks

Orders from Overseas Vietnamese (OVs) have really jumped this year said Dong Nai, the owner of Tran Gia Company in Bien Hoa City adding that the company has had to step up production of Chung cakes, Tet cakes, and marmalades to meet the increased demand.

The owner of Tran Thanh Toan Company in turn said it has shipped over 60 tonnes of Chung cakes and other traditional holiday specialties like Dong leafs, sticky rice and spices to 10 countries.

In fact, Toan said that business has been so brisk the company hasn’t been able to fill all of the orders for Chungcakes. Most orders have come from OVs in the US, Canada and Australia he said adding that orders from the US alone amounted to over 38 tonnes of product.

Phan Quoc Nam, director of the Long Uyen Company in Chau Thanh district, Tien Giang province said his company has also been frantically shipping fruits, farm produce and specialty cakes for the past six weeks overseas.

We shipped right at 20 tonnes of Tet cakes, frozen bulbs and potatoes to North Europe and Germany just in the past week, Nam added.

A lot of work goes into preparing product for shipment Nam said adding that because of the lengthy transport time the cakes need to be packaged carefully and all the production processes must be meticulously monitored.

In particular, the EU food hygiene and safety import restrictions are very stringent Nam said so we have to be extra careful or all our hard work would have been for nothing.

Meanwhile the owner of a Tet and coconut cake unit in Chau Thanh district, Ben Tre province said his company has just received 20-30 foreign orders with sizes ranging from 10,000-30,000 cakes.

Tran Thanh Phu owner of Tan Dong Company in Thu Duc district, HCM City said he has a two tonne shipment of product headed for the EU and Australia sitting packaged and ready to ship.

Tri Duc Food Company said it exported around 20 tonnes of gingersnap, bamboo shoot, sweet potato, and potato marmalades to the US, the EU and some other Asian countries.

Vice Director of Hoang Mai Tea Company Pham Thu Nga said this year his company successfully shipped 20 tonnes of fungi, vermicelli and rice sheet abroad on the occasion of the TET holidays.

Vinamit Company has completed contracts to ship dried fruits to China, Cambodia and Laos.

Supermarkets are also busy with orders to ship TET specialities overseas.

Director of Big C supermarket Ho Quoc Nguyen revealed that Big C exported six containers of dried vermicelli, instant noodle soup, fish sauces and dried fruits to other countries in Asia so far this holiday season.

We’re having a great holiday season, said Nguyen adding that he just hopes it finishes as well as it started.