Matthys van der Lely officially in charge of Masan meat business

Matthys van der Lely

Matthys van der Lely is a seasoned executive with 30 years of experience across retail formats and developing branded meat businesses in Southeast Asia.

In his most recent role, as senior vice president of Mergers and Acquisitions, Business Development and Retail, he was responsible for building out Bounty Fresh’s retail business from the ground zero and has successfully turned the business into the Philippines’ second largest branded meat player while delivering strong profits.

“I am excited to lead and accelerate Masan Nutri-Science’s vision of being the leading provider of safe and affordable meat products. Based on my experience, I strongly believe the Vietnamese meat market will evolve from predominantly warm fresh meat to chilled meat. Chilled meat will be the new standard as it is more delicious and hygienic,” said van der Lely.

“With Masan’s 3F (Feed-Farm-Food) meat platform, I am confident we will deliver Vietnamese consumers the best chilled meat products at affordable price points. I look forward to working with the Masan team to make this vision a reality in the near future,” he added.

According to Masan Nutri-Science CEO Pham Trung Lam, the firm was established with the end goal of becoming a consumer meat company and they will launch the first branded, chilled meat products in the fourth quarter of this year.

“The appointment of van der Lely will enable us to scale-up our meat business faster as he has a proven track record in other Southeast Asian markets and has strong entrepreneurial spirit. His skill set and experience strongly compliments our team and is core to our philosophy of combining international expertise with deep local understanding and know-how,” Lam said.

Part of Masan Group—one of Vietnam’s largest private sector companies—Masan Nutri-Science (MNS) focuses on driving productivity in Vietnam’s animal protein industry with scale touching $9 billion and striving to serve consumers with traceable, quality, and affordable meat products.

In 2017, MNS sold over two million tonnes of animal feed through its national network of over 4,500 dealers and 13 feed facilities.

By implementing an FMCG approach to the feed business, the company has developed the successful umbrella brand “Bio-zeem,” allowing it to achieve 35 per cent market share of the external pig feed market.

With the success and cash flows of its feed business, MNS has since gone on to develop an integrated branded platform with the commissioning of its large scale pig farm in the north-central province of Nghe An and breaking ground at its meat processing complex in Ha Nam province, which is expected to start providing fresh and chilled meat for Vietnamese consumers by the end of 2018.