Vietnam drink maker hit by boycott, quality inspection after winning fly-in-bottle lawsuit

The Vietnamese Consumer Protection Association has received complaints from local residents and authorities in the southern province of Ca Mau, as hundreds of Tan Hiep Phat-made herbal tea products were found containing strange objects last week.

“We have tasked the Ca Mau consumer protection unit with inviting the drink maker for a meeting to clarify the issue,” the association head, Nguyen Phuoc Hong, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Sunday.

The Ca Mau food safety watchdog said last week they had found more than 100 unopened bottles of Dr Thanh herbal tea to be containing floating ‘dregs’ from various places in the province.

The products are all within their expiry date, but white sediment can easily be seen floating at the bottom of the bottles, raising doubt over their quality, according to food safety officers.

Seventy-nine of the Dr Thanh bottles were seized on Tuesday from a local café and a beverage store, while the same white dregs were also spotted inside 48 bottles of the tea at a Tan Hiep Phat dealership the following day.

Tan Hiep Phat Group, headquartered in the southern province of Binh Duong, also makes products including Number 1 energy drink, Soya soy milk, and Zero Degree green tea, which have all been boycotted by local consumers.

The boycott movement was initiated on the heels of a court ruling that a consumer in the southern province of Tien Giang be jailed for seven years for extorting money from the drink maker with a bottle of Number 1 that had a fly inside.

Vo Van Minh demanded VND1 billion (US$46,600), and later halved it to VND500 million, in return for his silence.

Minh was about to receive the cash from a company representative on January 27 when police officers, notified by Tan Hiep Phat of what it considered blackmail, arrived to capture him.

The company had secretly called for police intervention while already agreeing to pay Minh, and was therefore blasted for treating its customer in such an unethical way, which eventually led to an Internet-based boycott of its products.

There are people who believe it is right for Tan Hiep Phat to have police officers arrest Minh, but such supporters seem outnumbered by the opponents.

An apology?

Nguyen Phan Huy Khoi, director of public relations with Tan Hiep Phat, said on Saturday that the boycott is an act of sabotage and the company is a victim.

The drink maker has previously claimed that it incurred damage worth at least VND2 trillion ($89.29 million) as consumers turned their back on its products.

Also on Saturday, one day after the court ruling, Tan Hiep Phat released a letter of apology, in which its deputy general director, Tran Uyen Phuong, said sorry to “consumers and particularly the family of Vo Van Minh for the inconvenience caused.”

Phuong said the company is sticking to its ultimate goal of satisfying consumers, so it will “always listen to suggestions and improve its service quality.”

As for the lawsuit with Minh, the executive said Tan Hiep Phat “followed the laws and never compromised themselves by cooperating with illegal activity.”

The drink maker said it was “sorry for what happened to Minh,” but still referred to the customer’s act as “extortion” causing another wave of public outrage over what people saw as an insincere apology.

While the letter does not directly address the boycott of Tan Hiep Phat products, it says the company “hopes to receive support from consumers for a Vietnamese brand” and continue to compete with multinational groups.

In a separate interview with newswire VTC News, Khoi, the PR head, refused to comment on the quality complaints against the Dr Thanh products in Ca Mau.

“Errors are acceptable in any firm or brand around the world, so long as they are within a certain limit,” he said.

“Even Apple Inc. has erroneous products and as a maker of 100 million bottles of drink products a year, we cannot say ours are 100 percent error-free.”

The group maintained in a print ad published by a newspaper in March this year that its assembly line is modern and closed so nothing strange can make its way into the bottles, challenging customers to find dirt in return for a cash reward.

Khoi said the company is working with authorities in Ca Mau over the Dr Thanh scandal and refused to comment further on when there will be an official conclusion from regulatory bodies.

As for the boycott campaign, Khoi said consumers should give the company more time.

“We want more time to prove our image and responsibility to the public,” he said.

“We believe consumers understand what is right and wrong and view all public opinions as a reminder that we should ensure quality.”