Potential street food market remains unexploited

Nguyen Phi Van, a retail and franchise specialist said that Vietnam has not had street food business although the market potential is very large.

“In only five years from 2011 to 2016, street food chain in Vietnam achieved an average growth of 24.1% per year and a total increase of 194.3%; an average revenue growth of 32.1% and a total increase of 300%. This is just the statistics of Euromonitor on four chains selected in terms of scale, points of sale. 

Meanwhile, as of the end of 2016, Vietnam had a total of 149,000 street food outlets with a total value of 46.9 trillion dong and the annual growth rate of two percent”, said Van.

This study has partly explained for the exciting of the street food market in 3-4 recent years. Many brands have come into being, and points of sales are opened very quickly and also disappear not long after.

According to Van, street food is also a model so it needs professional operation though the investment can only be a mobile trolley worth five or ten million dong or more. If there is no system, no preparation in training, operation, human resource, supply chain, financial model, technological appliance, etc., then the development will certainly fail.

It is quite common now that those involving in street food business now are often subjective. They think that the investment is low, so it is not necessary to be professional.

Therefore, they have not taken opportunities from the financial market to shape, build and develop a comprehensive chain.

“It is a great opportunity if street food can be professionalized and developed into chains.

The biggest challenge of this industry is that most of young people come from individual households, who often self-open stores then it will be very difficult to succeed. Food giants will sooner or later enter this market and gain market share. Five StarChicken is as mall example”, said Van.

According to retail experts, foreign “giants” are focusing on developing their brands in Vietnam so they have not “attacked” the street food segment. Once they have developed stably, they will certainly shift to street food and accelerate the chain opening. 

The common trend in the world and also in Vietnam is consumer have “n in 1″ demand. This trend is clearly reflected in the fact that convenience stores have competed by opening additional fresh food segment, bringing processed food (including street food) to serve customers.

The fact that such large brands as 7-Evelen, Circle K, Ministop or Satra have supplemented food items that are strictly controlled in terms of quality, food hygiene and accepted by consumers has increased competitiveness in the street food market.

According to market research companies, though Vietnam has 149,000 street food outlets, only 0.59% of these are branded stores.

This ratio is 5% in Hong Kong, 10% in Singapore, 21% in the Philippines,and 30% in Taiwan.

Street food is now a very potential segment not only in the country but also in the world.

The current trend is that countries are favored of indigenous food, and consumers in the world are eager to approach traditional cuisine of countries. Therefore, if knowing how to do, Vietnamese street food can entirely be “exported”.