MM Mega Market envisions new business strategies for upswing in Vietnam

Bruno Jousselin, managing director of MM Mega Market Vietnam

Could you share about MM’s efforts to build out a safe food supply chain for Vietnamese consumers?

As the supplier to nearly a million restaurants, hotels, and canteens in Vietnam, from the outset we gave top priority to food quality and safety. With the aforementioned quality management system, MM has become a modern distributor in Vietnam, pioneering quality, hygiene, and food safety by strict control from the selection of seeds and breeds to production and transportation to each MM centre.

We apply state-of-the art automatic systems to ensure the goods purchased, stored, preliminarily processed, processed, and distributed in the MMVN system are always safe and have the expected satisfactory quality.

MM Mega Market is currently running four food product platforms believed to be the largest of their kinds in Vietnam, including Da Lat Vegetable Platform, Can Tho Fish Platform, Dong Nai Pork Platform, and Ben Tre Fruit Platform.

At Da Lat vegetable platform, we are collaborating with nearly 300 farming households. Covering a 250 hectare source area, every year, this platform is churning out more than 12,000 tonnes of VietGAP-qualified vegetables and fruits to serve consumers nationwide.

At all of these platforms, MM’s capable agricultural engineers get to work first-hand and closely with the local farmers and co-operatives on everything, from seed and breed selection to production planning, harvesting, and transporting directly to the platforms. Farming households joining the loop will need to maintain a farm logbook, recording in details how they use pesticides, keeping a journal of harvesting work, and conducting periodic quality testing in accordance with MM Mega Market Vietnam’s prevailing norms.

Does MM plan to continue expanding its safety food supply chain in the coming year?

As food safety and hygiene are one of the most concerning issues of modern life, we plan to develop new food platforms in the near future. After the success of Dong Nai Pork Platform, the upcoming pork platform will be operating in the north to bring peace of mind to consumers in this area.

In addition, we also plan to build the first MM chicken platform in Vietnam with the goal of bringing the safest poultry food to our customers.

What are MM’s plans to export agricultural products to foreign markets?

This year (2019) is the second year that MM Mega Market exports Vietnamese agricultural products to foreign markets. We are currently exporting Vietnamese agricultural products mainly to Thailand for distribution in nearly 1,000 big and small supermarkets, as well as Big C, and Singapore through the international distribution system of TCC Land International (Singapore) Pte., Ltd.

By the end of the third quarter of 2019, we have exported about 1,000 tonnes of Vietnamese agricultural products to Thailand and Singapore. Our target to boost the export of Vietnamese goods to about 5,000 tonnes by the next year.

Apart from these two markets, we are looking for some potential markets to export Vietnamese agricultural products, such as China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

How do you evaluate the Vietnamese retail market’s prospects for next year? What are the opportunities and challenges?

With a population of nearly 100 million, Vietnam is a promising retail market. Vietnamese consumers tend to pay more and more attention to the safety and quality of products, so they will choose to shop at trusted supermarkets. Moreover, the incomes and living standards of Vietnamese people are increasing day by day. These factors promote the development of the Vietnamese retail market in the coming years.

The more opportunities, the bigger the challenges. The market will surely become more and more competitive, with more and more brands entering. However, customers will benefit the most from this competition.

In order to attract customers, retailers must constantly grasp their needs, trends, and shopping habits to adjust business strategies. Vietnamese consumers will switch to shopping more in supermarkets than hyper markets far from the centre due to traffic issues. Besides, many Vietnamese consumers are becoming busier and they enjoy shopping at convenience stores, or even online. In particular, product quality, price, and services remain important factors that retain customers.

What is MM’s development strategy in the next few years to affirm its solid position in the Vietnamese retail market scene?

In order to meet the new consumption habits of Vietnamese consumers, we will have new development strategies in Vietnamese in the coming years. We will launch new business formats, food service concept and B2B platforms alongside traditional stores that have been MM's strength for years.

Besides, we will promote e-platform which applies for sales and marketing to offer the greatest convenience to customers. Our goal is to build MM into the best food shopping destination for all Vietnamese consumers. We always endeavour to bring value for money to our customers.

In order to accomplish these goals, we conduct many changes internally as well as our relationships with our strategic partners. Accordingly, we will focus on customer championship, drive changes and be agile, collaboration partnership with all partners internal and external.

This December we launch a new supermarket with a totally new format in Hanoi. Next year we plan to open three more supermarkets and a new concept of Cash and Carry store in Vietnam.