Vietnam's major coffee company Trung Nguyen Legend Group held a groundbreaking ceremony for a deep-processing plant in the Tan An industrial zone of Dak Lak province, a home of coffee production (reported 26 June 2026; groundbreaking 25 June). The first-phase investment is 98.9 billion dong (about US$37.58 million, about 6.09 billion yen in Japanese currency), with a spray-drying capacity of 1,000 kilograms per hour. It is equipment to send out Buon Ma Thuot Robusta, processed into high-value-added goods such as instant-coffee raw material, rather than as green beans. It can be read as a concrete move by a region that Japanese roasters and trading houses have long sourced from in "green bean" form, drawing the initiative in primary processing to its own side.
The substance of the "groundbreaking ceremony" held in Dak Lak province
Two projects broke ground at the ceremony. One is the new Trung Nguyen Legend plant, on a 4.9-hectare site, with a first-phase investment of 98.9 billion dong and a spray-drying capacity of 1,000 kilograms per hour. It is described as an energy-saving, environmentally conscious design meeting net-zero standards, with an operation target set for 2027. The other is an expansion project for the existing plant, on a 2.5-hectare site, with an investment of 15 billion dong and a green-bean processing capacity of 18 tonnes per hour. Dao My, vice chair of the Dak Lak Provincial People's Committee, asked the investment side to maintain the schedule and keep to the 2027 start of operations.
What is worth noting here is the term "spray drying." It is a representative method for making instant coffee (soluble coffee), drying liquid extracted coffee all at once in a high-temperature airflow into a powder. The capacity of 1,000 kilograms per hour is a completely different process from a plant that merely sorts, roasts and bags green beans. It carries the meaning that the region side has readied itself to ship "powder" rather than "beans."
Why the region is stepping into processing now
Behind this are figures showing Vietnam's coffee exports changing in quality from "volume" to "value." Vietnam's 2025 coffee exports recorded a record high of about 1.6 million tonnes and, by value, US$8.92 billion. Volume was up 18.3% year on year, but value was up 58.8% year on year, a growth on a different order of magnitude. In a phase where the unit price has risen, raising the ratio of processed goods is a structure in which the take grows further.
The track record of those processed goods is just starting to move. The 2025 export value of processed coffee (instant, roasted and so on) was a record high of US$1.78 billion, up 50.4% year on year. On top of the growth in green-bean export value, the growth of powder and roasted goods is accelerating. This new Dak Lak build is on the extension of the flow in which majors such as Trung Nguyen and Nestle piled up investment in processing equipment in 2024 to 2025. Placing processing capacity in the region raises the unit price per weight transported and makes pricing as a domestic brand easier too. A clear intent on the region side to break out of the structure of selling cheap as green beans and being processed outside is visible.
The investment scale and the region's positioning in numbers
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| New plant, first-phase investment | 98.9 billion dong (about US$37.58 million / about 6.09 billion yen) |
| New plant, site | 4.9 hectares |
| Spray-drying capacity | 1,000 kilograms per hour |
| Expansion project, investment | 15 billion dong |
| Expansion project, green-bean processing capacity | 18 tonnes per hour |
| Operation target | 2027 |
| Vietnam's 2025 coffee export value | US$8.92 billion (up 58.8% year on year) |
| Of which processed-coffee export value | US$1.78 billion (up 50.4% year on year) |
Working backward from the correspondence of the 98.9-billion-dong investment and US$37.58 million, the conversion rate is roughly US$1 = 26,300 dong. The yen conversion is calculated at about US$1 = 162 yen at the time of writing, making the first-phase investment about 6.09 billion yen. What is worth noting more than the amount itself is that this investment is oriented toward "equipment that puts out powder" rather than "equipment that puts out green beans." The meaning of a spray-drying line rising in Buon Ma Thuot, a major Robusta region, lies in the exit of the raw material moving one stage back.
The meaning seen from the Japanese sourcing field
For Japan, Vietnamese Robusta is not someone else's problem. Of coffee exports from Vietnam to Japan in January to February 2026, Robusta accounted for 63.0% on a value basis. As canned coffee, instant, and bulk-up material for blending, Japan's beverage and roasting field depends deeply on Vietnamese Robusta. That the primary processing of that raw material moves to the region side is a story that the very "object to be procured" that Japanese sourcing managers face could change.
This move also overlaps with the flow advancing across Vietnam's farming regions of "not selling the raw material but processing and sending it out." For example, the case where Dak Lak province launched a fruit-processing cluster and the region moved to the stage of "processing and sending out" and this coffee deep-processing are on the same line of thinking. Even with different items, the structure of a region trying to keep added value in its own hands is common. In the coffee world too, the challenge of Son La Arabica trying to break the Robusta-only conventional wisdom, as there, moves in which the region takes the lead in redrawing "how to sell" continue.
What buyers and importers should start thinking about now
The practical takeaways can be laid out in three. The first is the possibility that green-bean supply gradually tightens. If the region increases the raw material it routes to processing, that much affects the volume that comes to market as green beans. The more a trading house has been buying green beans, the more room it has to factor the region's processing investment into its procurement plan as a "structural change on the supply side."
The second is to put "region-processed powder" into the sourcing options early. If net-zero-standard equipment runs in the region, then for product lines that want to foreground environmental consideration, a raw material that can speak to region and method becomes material for differentiation. A footing to compare, on both cost and brand, whether to source green beans and process domestically or to source the region's processed goods is taking shape. The third is building a relationship with the region. A region with processing capacity changes its position from a mere raw-material supplier to a trading partner with bargaining power. Operation is targeted for 2027 so there is still time, but building the relationship only after seeing the investment move would be too late. On the premise that the region is entering the stage of "processing and sending," talking with the local makers now leads to real benefit.
Sources
Vietnam Plus (VNA): Dak Lak adds new high-tech coffee processing project meeting Net Zero standards
Nhan Dan: Dak Lak adds new high-tech coffee processing project meeting Net Zero standards
VietnamNet: Deep processing lifts Vietnam’s coffee close to US$9 billion
VOV: Robusta dominates Vietnam’s coffee exports to Japan despite price-driven decline
