Fruits on display

Food processing for fruit and vegetable drinks

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Food processing for fruit and vegetable drinks

Country
Sector
Most major industry classification systems use sources of revenue as their basis for classifying companies into specific sectors, subsectors and industries. In order to group like companies based on their sustainability-related risks and opportunities, SASB created the Sustainable Industry Classification System® (SICS®) and the classification of sectors, subsectors and industries in the SDG Investor Platform is based on SICS.
Food and Beverage
Sub Sector
Most major industry classification systems use sources of revenue as their basis for classifying companies into specific sectors, subsectors and industries. In order to group like companies based on their sustainability-related risks and opportunities, SASB created the Sustainable Industry Classification System® (SICS®) and the classification of sectors, subsectors and industries in the SDG Investor Platform is based on SICS.
Food and Agriculture
Indicative Return
Describes the rate of growth an investment is expected to generate within the IOA. The indicative return is identified for the IOA by establishing its Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Return of Investment (ROI) or Gross Profit Margin (GPM).
15% - 20% (in GPM)
Investment Timeframe
Describes the time period in which the IOA will pay-back the invested resources. The estimate is based on asset expected lifetime as the IOA will start generating accumulated positive cash-flows.
Medium Term (5–10 years)
Market Size
Describes the value of potential addressable market of the IOA. The market size is identified for the IOA by establishing the value in USD, identifying the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) or providing a numeric unit critical to the IOA.
USD 100 million - USD 1 billion
Average Ticket Size (USD)
Describes the USD amount for a typical investment required in the IOA.
Varied by the target size of the investment which can range from a few hundred to several million dollars. A small processing factory may require USD 500,000 - 1 m (including land), while a large investment may require ~USD 50m (22).
Direct Impact
Describes the primary SDG(s) the IOA addresses.
Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12) Zero Hunger (SDG 2)
Indirect Impact
Describes the secondary SDG(s) the IOA addresses.
Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8) No Poverty (SDG 1)

Business Model Description

Invest in new processing plants for the production of fruit and vegetable drinks or in existing factories to increase capacity and operational efficiency under a B2C model serving end-consumers in the domestic market. Examples of companies active in this space are:

Nafoods Company engages in the production and processing of vegetables and fruit juices in Vietnam. It offers juice concentrates, fresh fruits, IQF fruits and vegetables, and juice/NFC/puree. Nafoods export covers more than 70 countries. It announced a private placement of gross proceeds of about USD 500,000 on March 9, 2020. This transaction involved Endurance Capital Vietnam I Ltd.

In the three years 2017-2019, domestic enterprises such as TH Group, Nafoofs Group, Dong Giao Food Export Joint Stock Company (DOVECO), Lavifood Joint Stock Company, Vina T&T have invested in 8 modern fruit and vegetable processing factories with capacity of 180,000 tons of products/year with an investment capital of VND 6,152 billion (nearly 300 million USD) (24)

Van Ho Fresh Fruit Processing Factory is operated by TH Group. Phase 1: Inaugurated in Sep 2020, with a total investment of VND 1,200 billion (est. USD 55 million) and a design capacity of 100 tons of fruit/day. Main products include longan juice, concentrated orange juice, passion fruit juice, and products made from mango and medlar (22)

Expected Impact

The fruit and veggies juice processing factories combined with the development of plantation areas for input supply contribute to increased agricultural productivity, and economic development.

How is this information gathered?

Investment opportunities with potential to contribute to sustainable development are based on country-level SDG Investor Maps.

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Country & Regions

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Country
Region
  • Vietnam: Mekong Delta Region
  • Vietnam: Eastern South Region
Learn more

Sector Classification

Situate the investment opportunity within sustainability focused sector, subsector and industry classifications.
Sector

Food and Beverage

In 2021, the Global Food Security Index of Vietnam was ranked 65/113, indicating high food insecurity and poor nutrition (1) due to very low labor productivity in agriculture production, i.e. 2.4 and 2.1 times less than that of Indonesia and Thailand, respectively. (2) Vietnam is also severely affected by climate change, and the impact of floods alone causes a loss of 2.3% of GDP each year (3).

Policy priority
Resolution 26-NQ/TW/2008 offers strong support from the government for rural development, including the activities in agricultural value chains, e.g market access, technology transfer, access to capital, human resource improvement, infrastructure investment, and business model development (4); and food safety for the population (5)

Gender inequalities and marginalization issues
As of 2016, 26 million female labor force in the agriculture sector had unstable jobs, lower incomes, and limited access to social welfare (6); a high malnutrition ratio for under-five children in rural areas was observed at 23.7% as opposed to 6.2% in urban areas (in 2020) (7)

Investment opportunities introduction
Mass production in various crops and livestock, for example, 12.6 m tons of fruits, 22 m pigs, and 512 m poultry in 2020 (8); USD 48 billion agricultural/ aquacultural export value in 2021 (9); Post-harvest processing technology - processed products with high added value accounts for only 10-40% of the farm output (10)

Key bottlenecks introduction
inefficient long supply chain, the under-developed infrastructure of the supply chain, unstandardized production processes leading to challenges in quality control, and lack of human resources.

Sub Sector

Food and Agriculture

Development needs
high post-harvest loss rate of 10- 20% (7). More than 50% of farmers overuse pesticides, negatively impacting human health (11). Limited processing capacity with equipment renewal coefficient is only 7%/year (equivalent to 1/2 - 1/3 of the minimum level of other countries), leading to a low income of USD 210 - 340/month for 1.6 m workers in the sector (12).

Policy priority
Decree 57/2018/ND-CP encourages investment in agriculture and rural areas (15); Resolution 48/2009/ND-CP supports solutions to minimize post-harvest losses for key agricultural products, improve production efficiency, and stabilize farmers' incomes (14). Decision 20/QĐ-TTg/2012 requires ensuring food safety by control throughout the food supply chain (16).

Gender and marginalization issues
post-harvest loss and overuse of chemical inputs reduces income for, and causing a negative impact on the health of, millions of households, including women, children and ethnic minorities. E.g in Binh Thuan, the income of over 35,000 households, of which women account for half of the labor force in dragon fruit plantations (21, 17), is often negatively affected by the demand drop in China.

Investment opportunities introduction
estimated USD 300m market for agri-tech solutions including the ones for distribution and retailing (19), more than 100,000 tons of pesticides are imported into Vietnam annually (18). and low fruit and veggies processing capacity: estimated at 600,000 tons versus total national production of more than 12m tons (20)

Key bottlenecks introduction
Access to land or land acquisition may be costly. Challenges in securing enough input supply at desired quality/quantity for processing factories, and in setting up distribution networks for production inputs or finished products.

Industry

Processed Foods

Pipeline Opportunity

Discover the investment opportunity and its corresponding business model.
Investment Opportunity Area

Food processing for fruit and vegetable drinks

Business Model

Invest in new processing plants for the production of fruit and vegetable drinks or in existing factories to increase capacity and operational efficiency under a B2C model serving end-consumers in the domestic market. Examples of companies active in this space are:

Nafoods Company engages in the production and processing of vegetables and fruit juices in Vietnam. It offers juice concentrates, fresh fruits, IQF fruits and vegetables, and juice/NFC/puree. Nafoods export covers more than 70 countries. It announced a private placement of gross proceeds of about USD 500,000 on March 9, 2020. This transaction involved Endurance Capital Vietnam I Ltd.

In the three years 2017-2019, domestic enterprises such as TH Group, Nafoofs Group, Dong Giao Food Export Joint Stock Company (DOVECO), Lavifood Joint Stock Company, Vina T&T have invested in 8 modern fruit and vegetable processing factories with capacity of 180,000 tons of products/year with an investment capital of VND 6,152 billion (nearly 300 million USD) (24)

Van Ho Fresh Fruit Processing Factory is operated by TH Group. Phase 1: Inaugurated in Sep 2020, with a total investment of VND 1,200 billion (est. USD 55 million) and a design capacity of 100 tons of fruit/day. Main products include longan juice, concentrated orange juice, passion fruit juice, and products made from mango and medlar (22)

Business Case

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Market Size and Environment

Market Size (USD)
Describes the value in USD of a potential addressable market of the IOA.

USD 100 million - USD 1 billion

CAGR
Describes the historical or expected annual growth of revenues in the IOA market.

5% - 10%

Critical IOA Unit
Describes a complementary market sizing measure exemplifying the opportunities with the IOA.

The fruit juice market in Vietnam is 450 m USD, nearly 11% of Vietnam beverage industry in 2019

The global fruit and vegetable juice market size was valued at USD 131.62 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.3% from 2022 to 2030 (23) The total value of the fruit juice market in Vietnam is 450 million USD, accounting for nearly 11% of the consumption structure of the beverage industry in Vietnam in 2019; the CAGR is 8% for the period 2020-2025 (25)

The import value of fruit and vegetable juices into Vietnam has continuously increased: in 2008 it was 10 million USD, but in 2019 it reached 25 million USD, and the trend is on the rise. Primary consumers of this industry are urban youth, who shop through the modern trade (MT) channel. (25)

The source of raw materials for processing fruit and vegetable juices in Vietnam is large and diverse: 12-15 million tons of fruits and 17.6 million tons of veggies. Vietnam has over 150 industrial-scale fruit and vegetable processing establishments with a total designed capacity of over 1 million tons/year, but the actual production output is only over 600,000 tons (33).

Indicative Return

GPM
Describes an expected percentage of revenue (that is actual profit before adjusting for operating cost) from the IOA investment.

15% - 20%

Nafoods Group JSC, a large company specializing in fruit juice processing, reported a gross profit margin in 2019 of 18.70%. Similar businesses have the same level of profit.

Investment Timeframe

Timeframe
Describes the time period in which the IOA will pay-back the invested resources. The estimate is based on asset expected lifetime as the IOA will start generating accumulated positive cash-flows.

Medium Term (5–10 years)

This is varied by the investment size. Time is consumed for investment registration procedures, import of machinery and equipment, construction, product development, and establishment of an input supply base. The investment timeframe is estimated to be 3 - 7 years.

Ticket Size

Average Ticket Size (USD)
Describes the USD amount for a typical investment required in the IOA.

Varied by the target size of the investment which can range from a few hundred to several million dollars. A small processing factory may require USD 500,000 - 1 m (including land), while a large investment may require ~USD 50m (22).

Market Risks & Scale Obstacles

Capital - Limited Investor Interest

Investment in agricultural production faces many difficulties such as lack of land, difficulty in accessing capital, unattractive governmental support mechanisms and policies, and challenges to develop a reliable input supply base (34)

Business - Supply Chain Constraints

The vegetable and fruit production areas in Vietnam are small and scattered at the household level. Underdeveloped infrastructure, low productivity, and the issue of quality due to limited production techniques, all lead to high collection costs and value chain unsustainability (31, 24, 29)

Impact Case

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Sustainable Development Need

The production of fruits and veggies drinks is a solution to increase the absorption of fresh fruits and veggies from farms, bringing down the mass volume of the post-harvest loss which accounts for over 20% (7) of the national production of more than 30m tons/year (33).

The investment in processing fruits and veggies to make drinks can improve workers' income that is low due to the low rate of processed vegetables and fruits (less than 4%, and over 80% of fresh fruits and vegetables are exported without processing (38, 20))

Gender & Marginalisation

The low and unstable income of fruit and vegetable farmers, especially the poor households, can be improved if the farmers establish supply contracts with the fruit and veggies drinks factories that will usually offer competitive purchase prices and provide technical assistance for farmers.

Expected Development Outcome

Processing fruit and vegetable juice will help to reduce post-harvest losses, increase product value 3-4 times, and create favorable conditions for market expansion - especially for export (38).

Meeting the consumer demand for high quality (processed) fruit and vegetable products, with ensured safety and hygiene, and long shelf-lives.

Gender & Marginalisation

Jobs creation and increased income will support farmers to develop plantation areas and invest in processing factories. (8)

Primary SDGs addressed

Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12)
12 - Responsible Consumption and Production

12.3.1 (a) Food loss index and (b) food waste index

Current Value

Post-harvest losses are still large, depending on the industry, but generally range from 10-20%: vegetables, fruits, cassava about 20-30%; group of coffee, pepper, cashew, tea about 10-15%; about 15-20% caught seafood; rice about 5-7% (7)

Target Value

Reducing the rate of post-harvest - no specific roadmap (7)

Zero Hunger (SDG 2)
2 - Zero Hunger

2.3.2 Average income of small-scale food producers, by sex and indigenous status

Current Value

Per capita income in rural areas in 2019 reached 39.5 million (7)

Target Value

Per capita income in rural areas by 2030: 90 million (7)

Secondary SDGs addressed

Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8)
8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth
No Poverty (SDG 1)
1 - No Poverty

Directly impacted stakeholders

People

People who work in processing factories and participate in the processed fruit and vegetable value chain, will benefit from improved job opportunities and higher average income as a result of having more diverse markets and higher farm gate prices.

Gender inequality and/or marginalization

Increasing linkage to private businesses means rural women benefit as their effort and role in decision making is recognized by private players, resulting in their empowerment and inclusion.

Planet

Reducing post-harvest losses equates to more efficient use of natural resources such as land & water, and inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides that can have a negative impact on the environment.

Corporates

Businesses in the value chain have more options for products (processed fruit and vegetables) to better serve the demand from the domestic market.

Public sector

Reduce the pressure on finding solutions for agricultural products that are dumped and sold at cheap prices due to a drop in the demand market and a lack of processing capacity for storing the products with longer shelf-lives.

Indirectly impacted stakeholders

People

The population benefits from improved well-being with more options for nutritious food and drinks over a period of time.

Gender inequality and/or marginalization

The benefits of empowerment of women (who participated in this business model) will spill over to other women, especially benefiting those from marginalized groups.

Corporates

Input service providers in the market-enabling system of the fruits and veggies value chain will benefit from more demand and higher revenue.

Public sector

Public sector: The competitiveness of Vietnam's agriculture is increased, contributing to achieving the socio-economic development of the provincial governments.

Outcome Risks

A negative externality is mainly the risk of water pollution because wastewater from processing contains many organic compounds, chemicals, grease, and heavy metals.

The investment capacity may not have enough supply volume due to traditional local traders and collectors often paying high temporary prices in the short term to secure supply from farmers.

Limited market understanding and marketing capacity will impede the investment from running profitably.

Gender inequality and/or marginalization risk: the investment benefit may not reach women and marginalized groups in areas where the investment is not happened due to under-developed infrastructure.

Impact Risks

Sourcing a sufficient input supply volume at the required quality from a large number of small producers is challenging to the delivery of the investment expected added value.

Inadequate investment in product development and market development can undermine the scalability of the business model vertically and horizontally.

There is not enough quality data to assess the impact of reduced harvest loss and increased income for farmers involved in the fruit and vegetable processing value chain.

Gender inequality and/or marginalization risk: the lack of technical assistance may prevent marginalized groups from supplying inputs of the required quality for the fruit processing business.

Impact Classification

B—Benefit Stakeholders

What

Production of fruit and vegetable juices to reduce post-harvest losses and increase the value of processed fruits and vegetables.

Who

Farmers in the fruits and veggies value chain of which the processing capacity is underdeveloped. Employees who work for the processing and distribution businesses

Risk

The risk level is low, maybe the water pollution and/or bad smell caused by the processing activities.

Contribution

Various investments have been made by private companies, for example, during 2017-2019, about USD 250m was invested by large domestic enterprises in 8 processing factories (20)

How Much

Vietnam's annual production of fruits is over 12 m tons. This IOA will contribute to increasing the current processing capacity of only 600,000 tons in 2020 (20)

Impact Thesis

The fruit and veggies juice processing factories combined with the development of plantation areas for input supply contribute to increased agricultural productivity, and economic development.

Enabling Environment

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Policy Environment

National Strategy for sustainable agriculture and rural development: set out strategies for agriculture and rural development to increase productivity, reduce poverty, apply green technology, and develop new rural communities (30)

GoV, Decision 7/QĐ-TTg, 2021: the country’s fruit and vegetable exports will be in the Top 5 globally, reaching an export value of 8-10 billion USD of which 80% is fruit (27)

GoV, Directives 25/CT-TTg, 2020: Measures and tasks on the promotion of linkages in the production and distribution of agricultural products (33)

GoV, Decree 98/2018/NĐ-CP: Encourage collaboration and linkage in agricultural production and distribution by providing different support that can enable the linkage, such as hard infrastructure, consultancy, extension service, production inputs, product brand development (31)

Financial Environment

GoV, Decree 57/2018/NĐ-CP: incentives for businesses to invest in agriculture and rural areas, including support for access to land/ water surface, reduced income taxes, research and technology transfer, human resource development, processing facilities, and so on (28)

Financial package of 4,37b USD is offered by the State Bank & other banks for hi-tech business (26)

If the newly established enterprise in an area with difficult or extremely difficult socio-economic conditions is entitled to the reduced corporate income tax rate (32)

Regulatory Environment

The Law on Food Safety, 2010: regulations on rights and obligations of organizations and individuals in ensuring food safety (35)

GoV, Circular 35/2010/TT-BYT: National technical regulation for non-alcoholic beverage products (36)

Marketplace Participants

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Private Sector

TH Group, Nafoods Group, Dong Giao Food Export Joint Stock Company (DOVECO), Lavifood Joint Stock Company, Vina T&.

Government

Local governments at provincial and district level, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Ministry of Science and Technology. Ministry of Health (MOH)

Multilaterals

European Union (EU, Development Programme (UNDP), World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank (WB), The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Non-Profit

VinaFruit, Association of Food Transparency (AFT), Vietnam Agriculture Export Association, Farmers Union (FU), Women Union (WU)

Target Locations

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country static map

Vietnam: Mekong Delta Region

Mekong Delta region in the South, including Ben Tre, Tien Giang, Can Tho, Dong Thap, is the fruit production hub in Vietnam. Major fruits in this region are pumeloes, mangos, dragon fruits, durian, coconuts, plums.

Vietnam: Eastern South Region

Three suggested provinces are Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, in which Binh Thuan is highly recommended due to its dragon fruit production hub and its close proximity to provinces in the Eastern part of the South where the supply of fruits is abundant.

References

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