Branding of agricultural products: Not yet 'beginning to chopsticks'

Not yet covering Vietnamese strengths

Referring to the story of branding for Vietnamese agricultural products, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry is currently directing the specialized agencies to brand a number of key products: rice, coffee, catfish and shrimp; guide the development of geographical indications for local specialty products, in order to protect and register Vietnamese agricultural trademarks.

At the central level, up to now, a number of export agricultural product brands with high value and ensuring the connectivity in the chain of goods from production to consumption, export and traceability of goods have been implemented. or under construction.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development report to the National Assembly recently about the implementation of Resolution No. 44/2017 / QH14 of the XIV National Assembly on the questioning activity contains quite detailed story of branding for Vietnamese agricultural products.

Specifically, with the rice item, the national brand of Vietnam Rice has been granted the Vietnam Rice trademark certificate / VIETNAM RICE; announced the Vietnam National Rice Brand Logo and promulgated the Regulation on the use of Vietnamese national rice certification mark.

In addition, the program of building high-quality coffee brands and brands of fishery products (shrimp and tra fish) is being drastically directed. However, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development also acknowledged: Until now, the above activities have only carried out a number of agricultural products, not yet covering the strong products of the “agriculture” industry.

Talking with reporters of the Customs Newspaper, many times, economist Pham Tat Thang had to say: The deeper the economy integrates, the more important the branding. Branding of key agricultural products has also been advocated, but the results have not been much.

Taking a typical example from pepper, coffee, expert Pham Tat Thang emphasized: Branding for pepper is still quite faint, needing to go deeper. For coffee, although the volume of exports is very large, there are almost no brands … Given the above evidence, the major export products of Vietnam have not been paid attention to building up the key products of Vietnam's export. “From head to chopstick.”

Piling up difficulties

Although playing an important role in contributing to increasing the value of exported agricultural products, why building a agricultural brand is somewhat sluggish?

Answering the above question, expert Pham Tat Thang expressed: The key of nature is the convulsive business mindset of both state management agencies and enterprises when only seeing immediate benefits but not the long term. To have a brand, you must build a whole strategy, combining building, protecting and promoting the brand.

“I think the brand perception of businesses as well as local managers is not right. They think that only the products with good packaging, famous names, and advertising on television, leaflets, appearing in some fairs, fruit festivals … are branded. While essentially called brands to find answers from customers to see what customers really think, evaluate how that product.

Wanting a brand, the product requires quality, convenience, innovation, adding new values. In addition, the service before, during and after the sale of businesses must be good, … “, expert Pham Tat Thang said.

Deep vortex analysis in the perspective of building Vietnamese agricultural brands based on exploitation of regional and regional factors, brand expert Nguyen Quoc Thinh analyzed, currently building agricultural brands faces many difficulties, exist. Typically, Vietnamese agricultural products have not built a quality control system yet.

The majority of agricultural products are grown and produced on a small scale, the source of plant varieties and domestic animals lacks control and direction. The production process is also based mainly on experience and practices; technology of harvesting, processing, preserving after harvest is still rudimentary; Scientific applications in agricultural production and processing are not many, leading to heterogeneous and unstable quality.

Products with collective marks are primarily determined by their quality by color, shape, taste … based on their common sense, so it is difficult to quantify to set a common standard for that product.

Besides, according to expert Nguyen Quoc Thinh, difficulties still come from factors that have not yet identified the clear rights and obligations of the members participating in the use and exploitation of collective brands for agricultural products.

Identifying the organization in the name of the entity that manages and exploits the collective brand requires that the organization must be strong, reputable and must master the production and business of the products it produces; Knowledge of the market, organizational and management knowledge as well as knowledge of intellectual property and the value of intellectual property.

Therefore, members often find it difficult to find a common voice, even arise disputes in brand exploitation, making it difficult to build, manage and use collective marks in the future. In addition, the subjectivity and delay in trademark protection have put many production and business establishments at risk of losing brand names in domestic and foreign markets.

Many sets “shake hands” to build brands

Regarding the story of promoting Vietnamese agricultural product branding in the near future, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development stated: The Ministry will continue to direct the branding of other key agricultural products of the agricultural sector, integrating a number of chapters. The program has been implemented before to create a spread and a positive influence on the international market such as: rice, meat, seafood, vegetables, sugar, coffee, tea, cashew, pepper, and high. rubber, coconut, wood and wood products.

At the same time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will support and create favorable conditions for regional specialty brands and one product per OCOP brand to develop through promotional activities, fairs, exhibitions, etc.

In order to carry out the construction and development of agricultural product brands to ensure the requirements are implemented in a methodical and professional manner, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development identifies to continue working closely with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Science and Technology. accelerate the development of geographical indications for agricultural products according to the Regulation on coordination of construction and management of geographical indications.

In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will develop a comprehensive program for developing Vietnam's agricultural product brand, which includes full implementation guidelines on the roadmap, financial, technical and market tools, coordination mechanism, sharing system, … so that localities can have a basis for implementation.

Other important solutions are also included: Strengthening policies on land accumulation, mechanisms to create public land and clean land to serve the establishment of agricultural production areas and construction of specialized areas. cultivating goods, material areas to achieve commodity scale, creating homogenous products, increasing efficiency in regional linkages; developing the trading system, promoting branded products, enhancing the capacity of staff, cooperatives, small and medium enterprises directly involved in branding of agricultural products …

Judging from the story of branding for Vietnamese coffee in particular and Vietnamese agricultural products in general, the Ministry of Industry and Trade assessed: Enterprises are mainly responsible for building their own brands.

Enterprises need to survey the needs of the market in the fields of market share – tastes – quality – price, thereby determining the proportion of processing suitable products (how many% of semi-processed products; % of refined products) to guide product development, build a marketing, marketing and branding strategy appropriate to their capabilities.

The State will support businesses in building and developing brands through media campaigns and image promotions; training programs, guidance, capacity building design, product format; how to create and promote your brand …