Building "prestige" in clean food business

​Recently, many stores for food, clean agricultural products, and organic products were born, helping consumers have new shopping channels for safe food. However, in fact, to determine whether the products at these stores are really clean as advertised or not, consumers are still confused and have not clearly identified.

Consumers choose to buy agricultural products at a supermarket in Bien Hoa City

In particular, in the past time, before the news in the press about a number of businesses supplying vegetables to clean agricultural stores, convenience store chains, etc., they have confusedly taken vegetables from floating sources to "enchant" them, labeled as clean vegetables, VietGAP vegetables make consumers more concerned.

Ms. Ngoc Hieu (Hiep Hoa Ward, Bien Hoa City) said that in recent years, the world as well as Vietnam has been quite fond of the trend of green - clean - healthy living, in which the raw and clean diet is focused by many people. Therefore, clean and safe agricultural products and food are also grown and sold easily and widely.

 "If there is demand, there must be supply, but the problem is that it is necessary to develop a set of standard criteria for product quality as well as standards for providing information and transparent brands with suppliers and shops. … so that consumers know where they can "try before you trust" and use it with peace of mind. Otherwise, the situation of dirty agricultural products or home-grown agricultural products labeled "clean" will still take place, causing many difficulties for consumers," said Mr. Hieu.

According to many experts, it is clear that the demand for clean food is increasing in the current context. In addition to stores and suppliers of clean food, agricultural products, and organic products that meet the criteria of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in fact, there are still cases of shops dealing in clean and organic food following the trend. Consumers have difficulty in self-checking the origin, which can only be heard through the seller's introduction.
Some stores selling clean food are "self-proclaimed", still vague, not transparent about the origin, as well as information on the necessary standards of food.

Therefore, in order to develop clean food business chains in a methodical and long-term way, it is important to build a link chain from production, supply and consumption in a fundamental and sustainable way. Thereby, building a brand, transparent information about the origin of goods, creating trust among consumers.

 Deputy Director of Co.opmart Bien Hoa Hoang Thi To Uyen said that the supermarket always focuses on building prestige and brand, putting consumers first by strictly managing the input quality of products, absolutely do not import goods and agricultural products of floating origin to sell to the market. The supermarket chain regularly reviews, inspects and re-examines the quality of the supplier's products twice a year to ensure that the goods entering the supermarket must meet and keep the criteria of origin, quality and relevant clean product certification…

Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Van Goi shared that in order to ensure the quality criteria of clean agricultural products, products meeting VietGAP standards, etc., besides the regular quality inspection and review by the authorities, the main issue is the building of a standardized, methodical and sustainable production, supply and consumption chain. Thereby, it is the links and members of the chain that will check and control each other's quality to ensure the prestige, quality, and value of the products... The development of large production chains associated with sustainable consumption will also contribute to help authorities have many advantages in checking the origin and quality of goods, as well as helping consumers to easily look up, check the origin, information related to the quality of agricultural products …