SSGA connects member exporters to Vietnam with ‘IP B2B’

By Shane Frederick, SSGA Communications Manager 

With a young population and a growing middle class, Vietnam is a burgeoning market for U.S. Identity Preserved (IP) soya and specialty grains, said Robert Hanson, agricultural minister counselor for USDA Foreign Agriculture Service in Hanoi. 

Hanson got the proceedings started for the Specialty Soya and Grains Alliance’s third IP virtual seminar and “IP B2B” (business to business meetings). This week’s event connected U.S. Identity Preserved exporters with food manufacturers and importers in Vietnam (previous events were held for the Philippines and Indonesia). 

“U.S. food ingredients have a great reputation (in Vietnam),” Hanson said. “They’re considered safe and of high quality.” 

The young, middle-class population Hanson spoke of means there is a growing demand in the food and beverage sector, along with trends for healthier diets and increasing interest in traceability. 

“Soybeans for food use is growing 4-5% annually,” Hanson said, adding that Vietnam is expecting to purchase 500,000 metric tons of food-grade soybeans for products such as soymilk and packaged products.  

Vietnam is the seventh largest export market for U.S. food and agriculture, Hanson said, and bilateral trade between the two countries totaled about $8 billion in 2020, with $4 billion in trade flowing in each direction. 

In 2019, Hanson said, market access opened in Vietnam for U.S. sorghum. 

Nearly 70 people logged on to the Zoom meetings each day of the Vietnam event. That group included U.S. processors and exporters, Vietnamese food manufacturers and importers, and staff from SSGA and Spire Research and Consulting, along with a group of ace interpreters. 

The Day 1 agenda, moderated by SSGA IP Technical Adviser Hoa Huynh, also included presentations from: 

• Rob Prather, SSGA vice-chair and chief strategic ambassador for Global Processing, who spoke about buying U.S. Identity Preserved field crops. 
• Timothy Loh, Southeast Asia regional director for the U.S. Soybean Export Council, who talked about U.S. Soy sustainability initiatives. 
• Nghia Tran Trong, Vietnamese representative for the U.S. Grains Council, who gave a U.S. specialty crops report. 

Speakers and presenters for Day 2, which was moderated by SSGA executive director Eric Wenberg included: 

• Ben Petlock, senior agricultural attaché for FAS Ho Chi Minh City, on the Vietnamese market for U.S. agricultural products. 
• Brian Sorenson, program director for the Northern Crops Institute, on NCI’s educational courses. 
• Raquel Hansen, Minnesota IP farmer and SSGA board member on IP being “the value that adds value.” 

Petlock echoed some of Hanson’s comments as he detailed the Vietnamese ag market, saying there is “a lot of energy and a lot of growth” for U.S. agricultural products in Vietnam, whose 103 million population’s average age is 32 years old.

For the IP B2B portion of the event, U.S. suppliers and Vietnamese buyers were matched based on company profiles and put into Zoom breakout rooms, along with interpreters, for one-on-one video business meetings. U.S. participants each had as many to three B2B meetings each day.

“We want to source what the customer wants,” said Wayne Knewtson of Minnesota-based Knewtson Soy Products. 

SSGA has two more virtual seminars and IP B2B meetings scheduled – for Thailand (June 14-15) and Malaysia (June 28-29) – and is planning another for China to be held on a later date.