Dong Thap Province in Vietnam is prioritising investment in fruit and vegetable processing to increase product value and market access. The province currently operates 25 fruit processing enterprises with a total capacity of about 700,000 tons per year.

Entrepreneur Nguyen Thi Minh Thy, Director of Bac My Thuan Production Trading Services Co., Ltd. in An Huu Commune, established a dried fruit business under the BamoFood brand. “On one of my visits home, I saw many ripe mangoes falling to the ground, and I remembered the dried mango and banana snacks my grandmother used to make. I peeled and dried some mangoes and gave them to relatives and friends. Everyone loved them. That gave me the idea of producing soft-dried mangoes so that more people could enjoy them, and to bring Hoa Loc mango to a wider market,” she said.

The company has since diversified into drying bananas, soursop, pineapple, dragon fruit, and guava, with Hoa Loc mango and dragon fruit as its key products. Each year, it supplies about 50 tons of dried fruit to the market, equivalent to 500 tons of raw fruit.