4.2.1 The current number of supermarkets in Thai Nguyen City
Five supermarkets are selling organic food products in Thai Nguyen City: Minh Cau supermarkets, Vincome, Thanh Do, Lan Chi mart. The supermarkets are active in the business of every product, which has organic food products such as rice, vegetables, meat, etc. Besides food products, supermarkets also provide other products such as consumer goods, electronics, fashion, etc. The total organic food market value of the five supermarkets in Thai Nguyen city was nearly VND 200 billion/year and accounted for most organic food consumption market share (Figure 2.1). Besides, consumer spending on health in Thai Nguyen City was showing signs of increasing, averaging over 5% of income, especially up to 47% of consumers in Thai Nguyen city were increasingly interested in healthy, fresh, and natural food products (Thai Nguyen Provincial Statistics Office, 2021).
Figure 4.2. Market share of organic food products in Thai Nguyen City Source: Economic Department of Thai Nguyen City, 2021
Up to the present, the whole city has counted approximately five popular supermarkets, detailed as follows:
Minh Cau supermarket:
Minh Cau supermarket under the management of Minh Cau Trading and Service Joint Stock Company was established in 2000 with the business area of around 4000m2. Minh Cau has operated to serve consumers of Thai Nguyen city with the best quality products. For the food sector, the mission of the supermarket is to make it easier for people to access organic and natural food products. It only provides organic and natural food products that have achieved prestigious certifications and are verified by Minh Cau. It also creates positive, long- term, and trusting relationships between Minh Cau and customers, employees, suppliers, and the community. It supports the development of farms, small communities in remote areas, ethnic minority areas, and vulnerable groups in society that cultivate organically and naturally for a better life.
Winmart supermarket
VinMart supermarket in Vincom Center with business addressed at Luong Ngoc Quyen Street, Thai Nguyen City, started its operation in Thai Nguyen city in 2017, with 1,700 square meters. Vincome is a high-end clean food industry pioneer and has a reputable, clean food supply chain in Vietnam. Its goods have quality assurance, standard certification, and competitive price.
WinMart supermarket chain aims to provide all clean food with good quality, good prices, and safety to consumers.
WinMart commits to customers: (i) Always put the company's reputation on the products sold; (ii) Always improve services and products better and better; (iii) Always understand the wishes of customers to meet the needs of clean food, competitive prices, good product quality.
Lan Chi supermarket:
Lan Chi supermarket had three branches in Thai Nguyen province. Since its establishment in 2015, Lan Chi has been a supermarket with a shopping space of 3000 square meters and more than 10,000 products in sectors such as fashion, food, electrics, cosmetics, etc. Lan Chi supermarket provides clean and natural organic food products regarding organic food products. The products at Lan Chi are not only delicious, quality, and diverse, shipped directly from the locality, but also at very reasonable prices. To bring specialties to consumers throughout Thai Nguyen province, Lan Chi always tries its best to get good, delicious, and best quality products to customers. Customer satisfaction is Lan Chi's greatest joy.
Lan Chi supermarket specializes in organic food products: Vegetables, Fruits, Fish meat, homemade sausages, spices, Organic milk, natural without chemicals, and no genetically modified foods. These products are all imported from famous organic farms such as Dai Ngan Farm, Minh Van Farm, etc.
GO supermarket:
GO supermarket, located on Viet Bac Street, was opened in 2019. It was one of the supermarkets in the GO supermarket chain. Compared with other supermarkets, GO supermarket has the advantage of being located in a new residential area with more than 37000 square meters. Currently, it is the largest supermarket in Thai Nguyen city. It now has more than 300 employees serving the shopping needs of customers.
Regarding the food industry, it is a place specializing in providing organic food products with a large quantity and variety of categories. With prestige as the focus, it brings consumers a source of fresh, nutritious, and safe food. GO supermarket specializes in providing organic foods of international standards and foods of natural origin. It is committed to always providing goods of clear origin from reputable manufacturers through a rigorous screening process, with full certificates issued by domestic and international organizations.
Although GO is a supermarket that has just entered the Thai Nguyen market for two years, it has attracted a lot of consumers in the Thai Nguyen city. GO has outstanding organic food products such as vegetables, fruits, organic meat, organic drinks, etc. GO imports these products from famous organic farms such as V-organic, Da Lat Gap, Aus Farm, etc.
Thanh Do supermarket:
According to Vietnamese standards, the supermarket offers many organic food products and goods from many local households in Thai Nguyen city. Its organic food products have less, and the price is slightly higher than other supermarkets in Thai Nguyen city.
Products sold here include fruits from different regions, organic pork and organic chicken from production areas in Hoa Binh, Thai Nguyen, and organic baby milk such as Vinamilk and Moc Chau. An outstanding feature of Thanh Do supermarket is that there are quite a few distributors with abundant goods with many types and quality assurance products, packed, stamped, and traceable and affordable prices.
4.2.2 The value structure of consumed goods at the supermarket
Organic food products at supermarkets in Thai Nguyen city were more abundant and had various products than most supermarkets in the other towns and districts. The supermarket had many different organic food products such as fruits, vegetables, meat, rice, milk, etc.
Table 4.1 The percentage of items in organic food products
Unit: %
Product Winmart GO Lan Chi Thanh Do Minh
Cau
1. Vegetable 46.90 45.51 46.76 50.10 52.45
2. Fruit 18.80 19.33 18.79 20.87 21.98
3. Meat 4.80 6.10 3.80 2.10 1.98
4. Milk 9.20 9.50 8.90 8.18 7.88
5. Rice 9.50 10.12 11.20 10.12 9.11
6. Others 10.80 9.44 10.55 8.63 6.60
(Source: Collected from supermarkets)
According to the survey results, organic vegetables accounted for the highest proportion in Thai Nguyen city, about 45-50% of the market. Therefore, it can be seen that organic vegetables were much more prevalent in Thai Nguyen. Next was a fruit, with a rate of about 18% to 22% of the total consumption value in the area—products such as meat, milk, and rice account for a low proportion. Because consumers in Thai Nguyen city have not changed much in consuming organic food products, therefore, supermarkets also focus on selling safe food products than organic food products. However, GO and Minh Cau was two supermarkets with a consistent allocation mechanism, especially GO supermarket. At the same time, GO supermarket also took advantage of the diversity and richness of products to attract customers.
Specifically, organic vegetables and meat were imported from organic farms from Da Lat to attract high-income customers. For middle-class customers, it supplied products from farms in Ba Vi, Son Tay, Thai Nguyen, etc. Therefore, product diversity can create competitive advantages for GO supermarket in the market.