Food giants hope to feast on snack sales in Vietnam

Nguyen Ngoc An, general director of Vietnam Livestock Industry Company (Vissan), sees great potential in the snacks market.

He is not referring to potato chips, but to fresh food made with chicken and pork.

"Deep-fried pork skin, seaweed dried chicken and pha lau (pork meat and offal braised in a spiced stock) are favorite dishes among young people," he said.

"Such snacks will be a good source of revenue for the company in the near future."

Already in the market, Saigon Food JSC has released more than 10 fresh snack products, including rice paper pancakes, corn fried shrimps, and tamarind fried balut eggs, which are selling very well.

Le Thi Thanh Lam, deputy general director of Saigon Food, said that the company's products are sold at 7-Eleven convenience stores in Ho Chi Minh City.

"In the near future, we will be exploring new product lines that fit the tastes of consumers to expand the snacks segment," she said.

A leading producer of poultry eggs, Ba Huan JSC has also latched on to this trend, launching a group of snack products including spicy chicken legs, skewers, sausages, and omega 3 flan.

Pham Thanh Hung, deputy general director of the company, said these snacks are new to the market, but sales are quite high. Most of the products are sold in supermarkets or convenience stores. Spicy chicken legs are most liked, he said.

Vinh Dat Food JSC, which introduced fresh snacks into the market before any of the above companies, said that initially, processed egg products such as balut egg stew, preserved black eggs and braised eggs saw slow consumption.

But by 2017, explosive growth of this segment forced the company to invest in more production facilities to meet demand. In the coming months, the company will develop more soft-boiled egg products and wholesale various types of braised eggs to restaurants.

The latest survey carried out by market research firm Decision La shows that on average Vietnamese youth spends VND13 trillion (US$556.53 million) on snacks every month.

And according to statistics by London-based market research firm Euromonitor, by the end of 2016, Vietnam had about 149,000 food kiosks on the streets, including mobile vans or fixed in front of houses, which earn about VND46.9 trillion (US$2.01 billion) per year.