Dak Lak Durian Festival 2026: about 600 tonnes moved through livestream sales
The "Dak Lak Durian Festival 2026," held in Dak Lak Province in Vietnam's Central Highlands, closed on September 2. Over the run of the event, about 600 tonnes of durian sold through sales centered on live commerce, reaching roughly VND 44 billion in value. Converted at the early-September 2026 exchange rate (about 167 dong per yen), that is about 260 million yen. It was an edition in which a production-area festival shifted its footing from an event that displays the harvest to a place that sells it off directly through livestreaming.
"One KOL/KOC per commune" placed sellers in eight villages
What assembled this sales effort was the government-led framework of "one KOL/KOC per commune (village)." Eight communes in the province each put up a broadcaster and took orders by live stream from the production area. Through this streaming channel alone, about 262 tonnes, or more than VND 20.4 billion (about 120 million yen), was sold. Local staff and producers stood before the screen and conveyed price and grade, showing the actual goods from under the trees and at the grading floors, a selling style that ran in parallel village by village.
Krong Pac's auction of 350 tonnes ran alongside the streaming
Beside the streaming sales, auction-style trading was organized in Krong Pac (Krông Pắc), a durian collection point in Dak Lak Province. This closed deals on about 350 tonnes, roughly VND 23.8 billion (about 140 million yen). Running two selling styles within the same festival — on-site auctions and village-by-village live streams — it was designed to place large-buyer deals and small-lot direct sales to consumers side by side. Adding the two together roughly matches the festival-wide total of about 600 tonnes and VND 44 billion.
Vietnam's farm-produce streaming has entered a stage where the government and broadcasters team up
Selling styles where production areas and broadcasters team up are not a move limited to Dak Lak. In Bac Ninh Province in the north, a lychee live stream with the vice chairman and a popular TikToker sold more than 31 tonnes in a few hours. One stream reportedly sold out 20 tonnes of durian in 30 minutes. TikTok says it will invest about US$4 million (VND 100 billion) in the second half of 2026 and extend nationwide an "E-commerce Commune" concept that sells specialty products on a village basis. As a circuit that can move large volumes of fresh primary produce in a short time, streaming sales have begun to take shape in various places.
The production area gained a circuit to reach consumers without going through middlemen
The core of this selling style is that the production area connected with the final consumer without going through intermediate distribution. Dak Lak durian flowed through middlemen to exporters and domestic wholesalers, and the initiative on price leaned to the buyer side. In the Chinese market, wholesale prices sometimes plunged when shipments concentrated, and the danger of relying on a single channel has been pointed out repeatedly (see Exports up 30% yet wholesale prices halve in China: the paradox of Vietnamese durian and market diversification). If villages hold streaming sales floors, they can move part of the harvest directly at their own pricing.
Clearing the harvest peak through streaming: the reality of freshness and unit price
Simply dividing the announced figures gives the eight communes via streaming about 78,000 dong per kilo (about 470 yen) and the Krong Pac auction about 68,000 dong (about 410 yen). The streaming average came out slightly higher, but this figure also mixes in differences in grade and shipping timing and cannot be separated out as the effect of streaming alone. Even so, showing the actual goods before freshness fades and selling on the spot, at the peak when the harvest rises all at once, has become one receptacle for avoiding a price collapse (see The peak of Dak Lak's 41,000 hectares of durian shows the sourcing know-how of 280 growing-area codes）。
What Japan's direct-sales and e-commerce can reread: put producers center stage in the stream
Drawn to Japan's direct sales and e-commerce, the implication shows in the choice of broadcaster. Those who stood before the screen under the Dak Lak framework were not distant famous talent but local staff and the producers themselves. A stream that speaks of grade and the harvest in the production area's own words meshes with explanations of shipping cost and freshness too. The way of bundling producers held by JA, roadside stations, and farm stands as streaming sellers on a production-area basis has room to be transplanted to Japanese production areas. Rather than individual farmers streaming solo, setting up a sales floor collectively by region is easier to move on both drawing viewers and clearing inventory.
The weakness of streaming sales: logistics and data remain as homework
Still, logistics after a sale through streaming remain as a separate challenge. The packing and transport to deliver a large, perishable fruit like durian individually by order takes more labor and cost than shipping in bulk at auction. Nor is there a guarantee that demand will continue into the next season if one relies only on the one-off draw of a festival. Whether streaming sales end as an event or grow into a year-round channel depends on whether the production area can even hold a mechanism to accumulate buyers' contacts and purchase histories and reach out to them again at the next harvest. Moves to place specialty products permanently on an app's shelves are also emerging in various places (see Da Nang's 477 OCOP products go to Grab: the day a ride-hailing app becomes a shelf for local specialties）。
An era when production areas can choose how to sell: next comes accumulating data
What the Dak Lak festival showed is the reality that a production area can now choose two selling styles — auction and direct sales — itself and run them in parallel in the same harvest season. The record of clearing about 262 tonnes through village-by-village streaming is also a record of the producer side pulling part of the price and customers into its own hands. For Japanese production areas too, who stands before the screen and how buyers' data is carried to the next step will be the dividing line between ending a stream in a single day's sales and not.
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