Lack of big brands for OCOP products

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Vo Van Phi visited the OCOP product display area of the province held in Bien Hoa city. Photo: Phan Anh

It is necessary to have a more complete and long-term mechanism and policy to "cultivate" truly OCOP product brands of provincial and national level with a constantly expanding consumption channel.
OCOP products are still fragmented and small
Up to now, the whole province has 111 OCOP products, but many localities have not achieved the goal of building one OCOP product for each commune associated with new countryside construction. Even the most recognized OCOP products still have a fragmented, small and discrete scale with many duplicate products, without a strong brand recognized by the market. Dong Nai has many OCOP products for pomelos, but there is still no big brand recognized by the market. Specifically, the whole province has many communes with OCOP pomelo products such as: Ta Lai green skin pomelo (Tan Phu district), Cam My district green-skin pomelo. Even Vinh Cuu district alone has many communes that choose green skin pomelo, orange leaf sugar pomelo as their local typical OCOP products such as: green skin pomelo, orange leaf pomelo in Binh Loi commune, orange leaf sugar pomelo Binh Hoa commune, orange leaf sugar pomelo in Thanh Phu commune… With durian and dried fruit, there are many establishments and units registered as OCOP products.
The same pomelo product has been recognized by many localities as an OCOP product of the province, but no local product has been invested in raising a really big brand name, recognized by the market with a chain of product links. production and consumption are really stable.
Mr. Phan Van Dau, owner of Quynh Nhu green skin pomelo farm in Trung Hoa commune, Trang Bom district is doing OCOP certification for green skin pomelo of the shared farm, the farm registers as an OCOP product for green-skinned pomelo with the goal of building its own brand and brand with the expectation that the output of pomelo products will be more stable. Pomelo trees are among the top in terms of economic efficiency, but in recent years, the price of green skin pomelo has fallen deeply, and the output is precarious, so pomelo farmers have faced many difficulties.

But in fact, for products that have achieved OCOP certification, the above difficulties have not been solved. Mr. Pham Thanh Dong, Director of Quyet Tien Commercial, Service and Agricultural Cooperatives (Cam My District), said that the cooperative currently has tens of hectares of pomelos for harvest and the biggest difficulty is the output for grapefruit. Because the cooperative's green skin pomelo has a certificate of food safety; barcodes for product traceability but are too new and have not been recognized by consumers.

OCOP pomelo of Vinh Cuu district displayed at a trade promotion conference in Bien Hoa City in 2022. Photo: Phan Anh

Need to improve the supportive mechanism
According to the feedback of many establishments, the subjects are farmers, small production establishments participating in the OCOP program, the reason why many products have registered to participate but have not been recognized as OCOP products is caused by many problems such as: requiring production facilities to be located on commercial and service land while the majority of these entities are located in rural areas; to build a production facility requires a lot of procedures and sub-licenses that are difficult for rural production establishments to meet; It is also difficult to apply for procedures on food safety as well as environmental conditions…

Ms. Cao Thi Ten, Director of Phu Ngoc Agricultural Cooperative (Dinh Quan district) is one of the pioneers participating in the province's OCOP program and her products have now entered many clean food stores, supermarket. She also poured a lot of investment capital into the brand, packaging and patiently invested her pocket money for trade promotion. But for the product to be recognized by consumers is a long process. According to Ms. Ten: “The cooperative faces many difficulties in the journey to reach and retain customers. But after the Covid-19 epidemic, the cooperative almost had to start over because it lost many orders from regular customers that I tried to connect before. The cooperative is currently facing many difficulties when gradually approaching, finding the consumption market as well as being recognized by customers. The big difficulty is that the cooperative is still swimming on its own and is looking forward to soon access supportive policies on capital as well as in trade promotion and market development."
Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Vo Van Phi pointed out that in 2022, the number of products reaching OCOP is still less than the target and plan set by the province. There are many reasons why many products are registered but not yet eligible to be evaluated. Here, there is an important role and responsibility of the locality as well as related departments and agencies in supporting the implementation subjects.

According to Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Vo Van Phi, the replication of production models associated with the OCOP program needs to develop a methodical and continuous policy and support mechanism. Accordingly, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development needs to coordinate with relevant departments and agencies to develop support programs for localities and subjects in implementing and replicating the OCOP program. In particular, focus on content to support the promotion and consumption of OCOP products.