TFR had the honour to welcome a high-level delegation from the Vietnamese Embassy in the Netherlands. Ambassador Ngo Hung Nam, trade counsellor Ms Vo Thi Ngoc Diep and first secretary Ms Phan Thi Nha visited TFR’s European distribution centre (DC). The European DC of TFR is located close to the Rotterdam harbor where all TFR’s fruit containers from Vietnam arrive. At this DC, the team of TFR in the Netherlands, checks the quality of every single fruit and then loads all fruits on trucks for further delivery to its clients all over Europe. TFR's managing director, Siebe van Wijk , explained that TFR is the only fruit company from Vietnam who has such a forward vertically integrated value chain for Vietnamese fruit.
After visiting all the cold rooms, docking stations and the fruit quality operations room, the Embassy delegation was delighted to taste freshly cut Vietnamese pomelo. This was followed by a very good discussion with Ambassador Nam and trade counsellor Ms Diep about several very concrete actions to develop the Vietnamese fruit sector. In addition opportunities to expand market access for Vietnamese citrus fruits towards new markets like f.e. Japan, Korea and Australia. The Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, recently successfully opened the markets of New Zealand for pomelo and lime. This is a very nice example of how the public sector can support the development of the private sector.
