Masan inks deal with De Heus to improve animal protein value chain

Masan inked a deal with De Heus to bring Vietnam's protein industry on par with the world

Under the MoU, the parties will develop and strengthen strategic partnerships and business cooperation opportunities. Accordingly, Masan and De Heus will work together to optimie and drive productivity of Vietnam’s 3F (feed-farm-food) animal protein value chain by leveraging on each respective parties’ strength and capabilities. In particular, Masan will focus on the branded chilled meat business while De Heus Vietnam will prioritise providing animal nutrition, genetics, and husbandry solutions.

Furthermore, Masan and De Heus will also partner with independent livestock and aquaculture farming entrepreneurs and provide an end-to-end solution to improve competitiveness in the medium and long term. Another goal is to develop a 3F operating model to ensure safe, innovative, and affordable chilled meat products are available to almost 100 million Vietnamese consumers.

The MoU embodies the spirit of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and Investment Protection Agreement and the strategic partnership between the two companies can greatly benefit Vietnam’s animal protein value chain and socio-economic development. In particular, the combination of De Heus Vietnam’s expertise in the upstream sector and Masan’s champion integrated fast-moving consumer goods-retail platform has the potential to accelerate the modernisation of the animal protein value chain.

Danny Le, CEO of Masan Group cum chairman of Masan MEATLife said, “I believe this partnership will significantly contribute to the modernisation of Vietnam’s animal protein infrastructure to be on par with those of developed countries. Our focus is to ensure that all consumers have access to safe, healthy, delicious, and most importantly, affordable meat and fish products. This has great potential to be a transformative partnership that enhances consumers’ daily lives.”

The parties will establish a steering committee to discuss investments by one or both parties in new or existing ventures and supply chain cooperation to ensure stable and predictable volume of input materials for the downstream meat business.

On the same note, Gabor Fluit, CEO of De Heus Asia said, “We are delighted to cooperate with Masan MEATLife. Overtime, higher regulatory standards are being implemented in Vietnam’s animal protein value chain in terms of food safety, biosecurity, traceability, animal welfare, and antibiotics usage. In the meantime, it is also crucial to promote the competitiveness of the country’s animal protein products compared to those from developed countries. To achieve this, it is important for the various links in the value chain to optimally work more closely together. I am confident that by combining the knowledge and experience of Masan and De Heus, we will be able to accelerate the desired progress in these areas.”

The MoU is a non-binding agreement, but the parties are committed to develop one or more collaboration agreements by the first quarter of 2022. All cooperation agreements and/or ventures are subject to customary corporate and regulatory approvals.