In early January 2012, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and Unilever in Vietnam signed the official MOU on the Vietnam Tea Initiative with the presence of Mr Bui Ba Bong - Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Vikram Agarwal - Vice President, Tea Procurement of Unilever, Mr JV Raman, Chairman of Unilever Vietnam, other representatives from MARD and Unilever, as well as representatives from other Government agencies and the media.

 

Being a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between MARD and Unilever, the Vietnam Tea Initiative is proposed to the Government of Vietnam by Unilever in its capacity as a member of the Public - Private Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture Development in Vietnam, which was initiated at the World Economic Forum in Ho Chi Minh City by Vietnam’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and a group of business leaders to accelerate sustainable agriculture-sector growth in Vietnam through public-private collaboration. Unilever has volunteered to take the lead, in collaboration with MARD in tea development and four other initiatives under the Task Force include coffee, fish, fruits & vegetables, and commodities.

 

Being the world’s largest player in tea industry, Unilever is strongly committed to expanding its tea supply base in Vietnam and to furthering its support to Vietnamese tea producers, especially in sustainability, quality and safety …, helping to contribute to the development of the tea industry in Vietnam. 

 

This partnership is a concrete action taken by Unilever to implement the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) launched by the Company in late 2010, under which sourcing 100 percent agricultural materials from sustainable sources is one of 3 key outcomes that the Plan aims to achieve by 2020. The partnership also has the potential of meaningfully involving an estimated 50,000 – 70,000, smallholder farmers in the tea supply chain. A key initiative then helps Unilever achieve USLP goal of linking in more than 500,000 smallholder farmers and small-scale distributors into our supply chain by 2020.

 

This partnership in Vietnam also showcases Unilever Vietnam’s long-term confidence and commitment to the Vietnamese market, further consolidating its position as a leading and most successful fast moving consumer goods company in Vietnam, and furthering its strong commitments to make Vietnamese lives better. Since the beginning of its operation in Vietnam, Unilever Vietnam has been committed to helping improve the lives of the Vietnamese through its solid business performance and contributions to the country’s socio-economic development; its continuous investment in impactful social and community initiatives, and its strong dedication to environmental protection. Unilever Vietnam has done so through its joint efforts and partnerships with the Government, the NGOs, with its partners and customers, as well as through the great contributions by its employees in Vietnam.

 

 

The Vietnam Tea Initiative aims to achieve the following objectives:

1.            To help Vietnam increase its export of black tea to Unilever through enabling Vietnam’s designated tea growers and processors to achieve improved quality and overall competitiveness of tea.

 

2.            Specifically, it is targeted to increase black tea procurements from Vietnam by Unilever to 25,000 - 30,000 tonnes of Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified sustainable tea by 2015.

 

Box:

 

·                     Tea plantations in Vietnam are mainly concentrated in the north and north-central mountainous regions. There are about 700 processing plants in Vietnam and up to 6 million people live on tea farming and processing, which makes the industry a key role in reducing poverty in the nation's remote, mountainous areas.

 

·                     To be competitive in pricing and flexible in manufacturing, Vietnamese producers need to start benchmarking their processes with production/manufacturing best practices from leading origins such as India, Sri Lanka and Kenya. A lot can be achieved through a transfer of leading edge tea production techniques. Yields can be improved by more sustainable agronomic practices.

 

·                     To expand and secure its market, Vietnamese producers must work at improving their quality and lift the overall quality spectrum of cup quality for all types of manufacture. Further, obsolete and inefficient machinery that is still widely used in the sector should be systematically modernised to achieve higher productivity and lower conversion costs.