Trung Nguyen opens $110 million instant coffee factory in Vietnam

Trung Nguyen officially opened its second G7 instant coffee factory in Vietnam's Bac Giang province on 28 March. The US$110 million factory is Trung Nguyen Coffee Group's fifth coffee factory. In a statement, the company noted that the factory will help meet rising demand for G7 instant coffee from the northern Vietnam and Chinese markets. It will also provide products for other Asian markets, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and others. The first US$30 million stage will focus on extraction technology and packaging lines to distribute G7 instant coffee to the country's north and the Chinese-Vietnamese border region in and around Lang Son and Quang Ninh provinces. In 2011, G7 instant coffee accounted for 75.8 per cent of the instant coffee market in Vietnam's north. The factory will operate at a capacity of more than 100 tonnes a day and employ more than 300 employees during this first phase. “Expanding the export of G7 instant coffee to the Chinese market will help to balance the trade between these two neighbouring countries,” Trung Nguyen said in a statement. Vietnam has most recently struggled to control its trade deficit with its powerful neighbour, which in the first two months of 2012 was reported at US$1.85 billion. The company noted that the Trung Nguyen Bac Giang coffee factory is one part in Trung Nguyen’s intention to realise a whole-chain production strategy for the Vietnamese coffee industry. In early March, the company submitted to the Vietnamese government plans to integrate the production chain via National Coffee Clusters. The company says that the project could create 5 to 6 million jobs and increase the country's revenue from coffee ten-fold to US$20 billion a year. Nine years since the advent of G7 instant coffee, it is now being sold to 53 countries and territories worldwide. It is the only Vietnamese instant coffee being sold in Cotsco supermarket system in the US and in the E-mart chain in Korea. “[The development of G7 instant coffee is] helping to lift the image of Vietnamese coffee industry,” the company said.