Feed producers’ big appetites

July 09, 2012 | 13:38

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Many foreign animal feed producers are increasing investment in Vietnam to meet the industry’s rich potential.

Japfa Comfeed Vietnam, an affiliate of Japfa - one of Indonesia’s leading groups in producing and trading animal feed and breeding animals, started work on its fifth animal feed factory in Vietnam, with the 7.6 hectare plant in northern Hoa Binh province coming with a VND600 billion ($28.8 million) price tag.

“With huge development potential of the animal feed industry and a favourable investment environment, we decided to build the Hoa Binh animal feed plant with an aim to meeting the market’s increasing demand,” said the company’s general director Sanjeev Kumar.

Japfa Comfeed Vietnam targeted to reach its animal feed output of one million tonnes by 2015 and two million tonnes by 2020, he added. In March Cargill Vietnam, an affiliate of the US-based Cargill Group, inaugurated its ninth animal feed plant in the country. The new $18 million facility, covering 4ha in northern Ha Nam province, turns out 240,000 tonnes per year.

Also in the same month, Cargill Vietnam opened its shrimp feed plant in the Mekong Delta’s Tien Giang province, taking over the plant from Japan’s Higashimaru in late 2011. Cargill CEO Greg Page said: “We see a very bright future in Vietnam as we prosper together with local farmers and producers in the livestock and aqua industry, as well as our valued dealers and suppliers.”

Chanh Truong, chief representative of Cargill Vietnam, said the company was studying to build additional animal feed plants to reach total output of 1.5 million tonnes per year by 2015.

Last year, China’s CP Vietnam Corporation announced it would build six additional animal feed plants in Vietnam before 2014. Another Chinese company – New Hope - also said it would construct six plants in Vietnam.

Vietnam Animal Feed Association chairman Le Ba Lich said Vietnam was home to more than 20 foreign-invested animal feed companies which accounted for up to 70 per cent of the market share, and nearly 180 Vietnamese businesses. He said local companies’ market share was expected to fall amid foreign firms’ expansion plans.