Vietnamese mostly drink reconstituted milk

A report showed that Vietnam is among the 20 biggest milk importers in the world. It imports 1.2 million tons of milk every year, mostly condensed prepared milk and cream.

According to Nguyen Dang Vang, Chair of the Vietnam Livestock Association, Vietnam spent $812 million in 2012 and about $1 billion in 2013 to import milk. The amount of powder milk imported to Vietnam is increasingly high.

The majority of Vietnamese now have to drink the fresh milk made of powder milk. Of course, the quality of the reconstituted milk is by far lower than the original fresh milk, even though the products are advertised as having additional nutrition.

A paradox exists that the fresh milk made of powder milk is more valuable than original fresh milk in the domestic market, which is explained by the fact that dairy producers have to pay high for material imports and ad campaigns.

Vietnam can make real fresh milk, but the output remains limited, while the quality problematic. A report by the Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development Policies showed that 20-50 percent of the fresh milk dairy producers collect from farmers cannot meet one of the required quality standards.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam now has 167,000 milk cows, including 120,000 cows being bred by households. There are very few concentrated milk cow farms where high technologies are applied in farming.

The quality of the dairy products advertised as “fresh milk” is uncontrollable. Consumers don’t have enough information about the products, because dairy producers only give “vague” information.

As a result, a lot of Vietnamese have to “buy a pig in a poke,” while others decide not to drink fresh milk because they are not sure if the products available on the market are real fresh milk.

The truth about “fresh milk” that it was made of import powder milk was only found some years ago, which made consumers astonishingly surprised. Especially, they felt disappointed because they were cheated by the big and prestigious dairy producers.

The current regulations require dairy producers to clarify the origin of the fresh milk and the addresses of milk cow farms. However, most of the dairy producers ignore the regulations.

Technologies determine quality

Agriculture experts have pointed out that Vietnam has been following a wrong path to develop the milk industry: it hurries to make dairy products before trying to develop milk cow farms.

Vietnamese dairy producers have been trying to make profit quickly by importing powder milk for domestic processing and sale, while they don’t spend money on the husbandry.

Meanwhile, state management agencies have not set up required standards for fresh milk and other dairy products. As a result, the government cannot encourage the milk cow farming.

Dang Kim Son from the Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development Policies said that developing milk cow farms with modern technologies is the only good way to develop Vietnam’s husbandry and milk industries.