After more than 3 years of building an exclusive brand, the cooperative has had the opportunity to integrate into the market and expand its business activities. This process also helps the cooperative accumulate many lessons on local agricultural product management. The cooperatives hope to be accompanied by the government to improve the quality of their products and increase their value in the market.
Useful little lesson
“I bought a Xi Thoai brocade scarf for 700,000 VND as a gift. I felt that giving a scarf wrapped in a plastic bag was not formal, so I bought a bamboo box and engraved it with the words - Xi Thoai Traditional Brocade Weaving Village, Phu Yen Province. In that bamboo box, I put a bilingual Vietnamese-English leaflet introducing the craft village and local traditional products. I asked my friend to price this product when I bought it in Hanoi . My friend said the cheapest price was 2 million VND.” That was the story shared by Mr. Dang Kim Ba, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment at the recent conference of the Executive Board of the Provincial Cooperative Union.
Mr. Dang Kim Ba further affirmed: Products from 700,000 VND to 2 million VND when a few details are added. These details show professionalism and commerciality in production and business. In the market, a valuable product has commerciality that determines over 70% of the possibility of success. This is what cooperatives, cooperatives and even many businesses in our province still lack.
Comparing the commercial nature of products between collective economic units, the core of which is cooperatives, and enterprises, there is still a big gap. Specifically, for enterprises, before a product appears on the market, they must complete everything from design, packaging, exclusive registration to meeting environmental criteria, food hygiene and safety, traceability, etc.
But cooperatives, on the contrary, bring products to the market first and then add whatever customers or management agencies demand. This makes cooperative products slow to integrate into the market and limits their competitiveness.
Peanuts for the people of Xuan Phuoc commune (Dong Xuan district) are a crop converted from inefficient rice fields. Many years ago, like many other agricultural products, peanuts also suffered from a good harvest but low prices and consumption depended on traders. This situation was completely reduced when Xuan Phuoc Agricultural Production and Service Cooperative processed peanut oil and built an exclusive brand for local agricultural products.
According to Mr. Nguyen Du, Director of this Cooperative, official consumption is an effective way for people's agricultural products to no longer be disadvantaged in the market. Although the investment process is difficult with many stages such as production, processing, and brand building, in return, the consumption capacity increases with high prices. Understanding the importance of official consumption, when the peanut oil product's OCOP certification expired, the Cooperative immediately completed the procedures to be re-recognized. In early 2024, this product of the Cooperative continued to achieve 3-star OCOP certification.
Need local support
Tay Hoa District is a locality with many cooperatives building brands for rice products, such as Hoa Phu Agricultural Service Cooperative, Hoa Phong Agricultural Service Cooperative, Hoa Binh 1 General Agricultural Business Cooperative, Hoa My Tay Agricultural Service Cooperative... Currently, these cooperatives are facing difficulties in processing, specifically rice milling. Meanwhile, a cooperative does not have enough capital to invest in its own rice milling machine, so the cooperative hopes that the local government will support it.
Mr. Nguyen Van Dong, Director of Hoa Phong Agricultural Service Cooperative, shared: Rice is still the mainstay of people in Hoa Phong commune in particular and Tay Hoa district in general. To improve processing efficiency, the cooperative hopes that the local government will support the construction of 1-2 rice milling factories in the area.
For most cooperatives with OCOP certified products, the current difficulty is to build a growing area code to integrate into the product, creating more prestige for customers when tracing the origin of agricultural products. According to Director of Hoa Thanh General Agricultural Service Cooperative Pham Duc Hau, the growing area code is not simply the area of a type of agricultural product but is also related to production planning and crop structure in the locality. Therefore, cooperatives need guidance and support from local authorities.
On a product, just considering the packaging, in addition to the form, color, and beautiful design, it is also necessary to integrate barcodes, traceability codes, etc. Cooperatives have only participated in the market according to OCOP standards for about 3 years, so it is inevitable that there are shortcomings. It is worth noting that cooperatives always strive to improve themselves and understand the value of official production in increasing the value of agricultural products, ensuring output for members.
Mr. Le Thanh Lam, Chairman of the Provincial Cooperative Union |
MINH DUYEN
Source: https://baophuyen.vn/82/318771/bai-hoc-ve-quan-tri-san-pham-cho-hop-tac-xa.html
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