Retail prices of milk in Vietnam are standing at the highest level as compared to those offered in other foreign countries, according to the national Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development.
The average milk retail price is US$0.82 per kilo in Vietnam while it normally costs US$0.8 per kilo in North America, China, Israel, and the EU, and even US$0.4 per kilo in Eastern Europe and South America, the institute said.
It is the first paradox that domestic milk producers are offering the world’s highest retail prices but the industry buys fresh milk from local dairy cow raisers at just VND3,500 ($0.21) per kilo, possibly the lowest rate in the world.
A kilo of fresh dairy milk currently costs $0.54-0.71 in Japan and South Korea, $0.28 in Thailand and $0.3 in China.
With such an artful business, revenue gained by local milk companies is an indefinitely giant figure, according to the head of Animal Husbandry Department, Nguyen Dang Vang at a recent meeting in the Mekong Delta province of Long An.
The second is that while domestic fresh milk output actually meets just 22 per cent of demand, the local market is being flooded with fresh milk products. It proves the fact that local dairy companies have already added a large quantity of powdered milk into their so-called pure fresh milk or sterilized fresh milk.
At present, Vinamilk consumes some 49 per cent of the country’s total fresh milk, Dutch Lady 20 per cent, Moc Chau Dairy Co. 5 per cent, and others the rest.
In 2005, Vietnam’s milk output was 197,000 tons while this year it has fallen considerably due to a sharp decrease in the number of dairy cattle.
“Vietnamese dairy companies are promoting many of their products as fresh milk products though they allegedly contain a large proportion of powered milk,” said Le Ba Lich, the chairman of Vietnam Animal Feed Association.
Lich also asserted that fresh milk products made by most domestic producers contained 40 to 70 per cent powdered milk and butter. This amounted to cheating consumers and the government should look into it, he added.
Cartons of fresh milk products from major producers like Vinamilk, Dutch Lady, and Hanoimilk on sale at supermarkets do not list ingredients, particularly the ratio of powdered and fresh milk.
For instance, on its 250 ml sterilized pure fresh milk cartons Vinamilk only mentions the ratio of butter (3.5 per cent) but not that of powered and fresh milk.
Similarly, Hanoimilk only names the ingredients in its iZZi fresh milk product without the ratio of each. Dutch Lady fresh milk products follow the same practice.
In developed countries fresh milk must make up 90 to 100 per cent of diary products.
A representative of Vinamilk, the country’s largest milk producer, admitted at the meeting in Long An that his company added powdered milk to fresh milk products. But he also claimed that the ratio of fresh milk was much higher in products sold in Ho Chi Minh City than elsewhere.
Nguyen Nam Vinh of the Association for Protection of Consumers’ Rights said dairy companies colluded with each other to buy fresh milk at low prices and sell milk products at high prices.
Concerned ministries and agencies should step up quality inspection, particularly for milk products, he added.
Vietnam is now home to more than 100,000, of which Ho Chi Minh City accounts for a half.
Despite such paradoxes, the MARD still entertains illusions that Vietnam's dairy cow population will be doubled to 200,000 heads by 2010, yielding out an estimated fresh milk output of 350,000 tons, helping the country reduce reliance on milk imports.
Young People, HCM City Women
Vietnamese
