In Cat Tien 2 commune (Xã Cát Tiên 2), Lam Dong province, the cacao manufacturing company Ban Ca cao, run by two women born in 1993, has entered the export procedures for Japan following its exports to South Korea. It is a small OCOP 3-star maker that finishes chocolate bars and pure cacao powder in-house, gathering 2.5 tonnes of raw cacao a week from 15 neighboring households. The setup of holding the production area themselves while integrating through to processing becomes a receptacle for when Japanese food buyers want to build in from 'the origin of the raw material.' As for who the story is aimed at, it is importers and confectionery-sourcing staff who want to build a shelf on story and traceability rather than unit price.
Two law-faculty graduates who wrapped up four years of city work brought things in-house through to chocolate in a year of trial production
The two running the company are Bế Thị Thu Huyền and Lương Thị Duyên. Both graduated from law faculties and, after working four years in Ho Chi Minh City, returned to their home of Lam Dong in 2020. With a division in which Huyen handles business development and sales-channel development and Duyen handles manufacturing technology, they launched Ban Ca cao (the company name literally translates as 'cacao village') after a little over a year of trial production. In 2022 they took first place in a Lam Dong startup contest, and Huyen personally was also honored as an outstanding regional youth in 2021-2023.
What catches the eye in this case is that, rather than passing raw material from right to left, they took into their own process everything from the fermentation and drying of raw beans to the molding of chocolate bars. The lineup extends to chocolate bars, unsweetened pure cacao powder, milk cacao powder, peanut-butter-filled cacao, and even a cacao liqueur. Holding derivative products like powder and liqueur is also a design to turn off-grade beans and off-season inventory into cash rather than discarding them. The current of a person who quit an urban office job and entered the production area taking even leadership over processing overlaps with the case of a law-faculty woman selling herb-prepared sea snails to South Korea, the Ha Tinh sea-snail export case and shows that Vietnam's young generation is beginning to turn to the 'make and sell' side of primary products.
2.5 tonnes a week from 15 households and 6 hectares; raw cacao bought at over 10,000 VND per kg
Here are the on-the-ground figures the sourcing side will want to confirm. Raw-material supply is sustained by 15 neighboring households with a combined 6 hectares of fields, and at peak harvest 2.5 tonnes of raw cacao a week is gathered. The purchase price is over 10,000 VND per kg for the raw fruit (pod). At a rough estimate of JPY 1 = about 175 VND, that amounts to about JPY 57/kg (the exchange rate is a guide). By presenting this price to enclose farmers and holding everything from fermentation onward in-house, they align the beans' condition and flavor.
| Item | Figure | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Contract farmers | 15 households | Around Cat Tien, Lam Dong province |
| Cultivated area | 6 hectares | 15 households total |
| Collection volume | 2.5 tonnes a week | Raw cacao at peak harvest |
| Purchase price | over 10,000 VND per kg | raw fruit, about JPY 57/kg equivalent |
| Certification | OCOP 3-star | Province-level rating |
Exchange rates are rough estimates calculated at JPY 1 = about 175 VND and US$1 = about JPY 148. Yen conversions of VND-denominated prices rise and fall with rate fluctuations.
A scale of 2.5 tonnes a week is an order of magnitude apart from the world of majors speaking in thousands of tonnes a year for white fish and shrimp. Conversely, there is a strength in being able to explain a single-origin lot with consistent flavor, even in small volume, tracing back to the farmer's name and the plot. As a similar move to grasp the upstream, there is the confectionery-sourcing-type cacao production-area formation in Dak Lak, distributing 17,000 cacao seedlings to secure the whole production area, and from it one can read that Vietnamese cacao, once mainly in the south, is broadening its carriers to the highlands of Lam Dong and Dak Lak.
Lam Dong is the land Marou chose for a single-origin bar; there is already a point of contact on Japanese shelves
Lam Dong's cacao is not an unknown newcomer. The Ho Chi Minh City-born bean-to-bar major Maison Marou puts out a Lam Dong single-origin chocolate bar alongside Ben Tre, Tien Giang and Dong Nai, and this province's beans have been appraised for a complex flavor reminiscent of flowers and fruit. Vietnamese cacao is only about 0.1% of world production, but it has a track record of placing highly at international competitions and stands on a ground where it is chosen for quality, not volume.
The bean-to-bar market is forecast to grow at nearly 8% a year worldwide, and the single-origin narrative of making the production area's name the product name is taking root. Marou's chocolate bars circulate in Japan too at department stores, select shops and as souvenirs, and there is a certain recognition of the category 'Vietnamese chocolate.' In other words, behind Ban Ca cao advancing its procedures for Japan is the circumstance that the groundwork for selling on a production-area name is already in place on the Japanese shelf side. This is a tailwind for a small maker.
Three practical matters Japanese buyers nail down when handling a small-scale OCOP production area
Nail down the concrete points of contact with the Japanese market. When a Japanese importer or confectionery maker handles a weekly-2.5-tonne-class, OCOP three-star origin like Ban Ca cao, the first question is supply stability. The peak-season 2.5 tonnes a week is not a year-round average; a buyer has to design, by combining several origins, for how the off-season dips and poor-harvest-year swings will be filled. Next, the import specification of the processed goods: whether you import finished products such as chocolate bars and powder, or bring in beans and semi-finished goods and finish them in Japan, changes the sanitary certificates and labeling required. Japan's OCOP-origin selection is just like Co.opmart putting 54 local OCOP products on its shelves by star count, a retail yardstick that picks origins by star count: a three-star grade serves as an entry-level guide, but the actual flavor and quality can only be confirmed by ordering lots yourself.
One more point: the fact that this company offers a range of derivative products from chocolate bars to liqueur meshes with how Japanese retail shelves are designed. By showcasing single-origin chocolate bars for gifts and events while running powder in parallel as a commercial ingredient for confectionery and beverages, the beans bought from farmers can be used without waste. For Japanese buyers, it becomes an advantage to consolidate both finished-product sourcing and commercial-ingredient procurement at a single origin.
How to handle 2.5-tonne-a-week highland cacao on Japanese shelves
- First, pin down in numbers the gap between the peak-season 2.5 tonnes a week and the year-round supply volume, and build quantities on the premise of combining other origins during the off-season.
- An OCOP three-star is an entry-level guide. Order lots of the chocolate bars and powder, confirm the flavor and quality yourself, then decide whether to take them on.
- Decide first whether to import finished products (chocolate bars, liqueur) or bring in beans and semi-finished goods for domestic processing, and identify the sanitary certificates and labeling required.
- The two-person setup of Be Thi Thu Huyen and Luong Thi Duyen clearly splits the sales and technical roles, so it is faster to handle the business-negotiation contact and the quality-specification exchange separately.
- The narrowness of the supply base, 15 households and 6 hectares, can be used on the shelf as a traceability story that reaches back to farmer names and individual plots.
Two people who gave up careers in law on the Lam Dong plateau buy raw cacao at over 10,000 VND per kg, finish everything in-house from chocolate bars to liqueur, earned an OCOP three-star, and after South Korea are now knocking on Japan's door. The smallness of 2.5 tonnes a week is a weakness and, at the same time, a weapon that lets them explain the entire origin. If you are moving on the Japanese side, the next step is to decide whether to build around finished products or commercial ingredients, request a sample lot from Huyen's sales contact, and draw up a supply plan for the off-season together. The groundwork for selling by origin name is already in place on Japanese shelves.
