In fields in southern Vietnam where temperatures reach 35–40°C, the Queen pineapple variety grown for many years is beginning to wither before harvest. Some years only half can be harvested — faced with that reality, in Can Tho City in the Mekong Delta a move is spreading in which farmers and processors boldly abandon the old variety and switch entire fields to 'MD2,' an export variety with strong disease and heat resistance. It is not a mere variety update. The creation of a growing area that links cultivation, processing and export in a single chain advances at the same time. As a procurement source for Japan's frozen and canned pineapple raw material, which depends more than 80% on Philippine product, Vietnam is worth watching as a turning point at which it could become a new option.
The variety switch happening in Can Tho's fields
The setting is the Hoa Lu district of Can Tho City. The local Tan Thanh Agricultural Cooperative and Westfood Hau Giang, a fruit-processing company representative of the Mekong Delta, have teamed up to advance the switch from the Queen variety to MD2. A cooperative grower says, 'With Queen you can harvest only about half; the leaves on the remaining 50% wither before harvest.' Rising temperatures, soil exhaustion from years of monocropping, and aging of the plants combined, and the old variety has stopped making the numbers work.
Westfood's CEO expresses confidence in reaching a net-zero target through efforts such as emission reductions. Drones have been introduced to the fields, the management of agricultural inputs has been reviewed, and the design links the practice of emission reductions to earning carbon credits. An attitude that treats climate change not as a threat to avoid but as an opportunity to remake the growing area is the backbone of this effort.
Why MD2 now
MD2 is a variety bred by the US company Del Monte in Costa Rica and brought to market in 1996. It is large, thin-skinned and juicy, and is said to account for 50–55% of the world's fresh-pineapple market and 70–75% of the EU market on its sugar content and uniformity of size. Since 2017, Westfood has directly imported MD2 seedlings from Costa Rica and, inviting in experts, has built up propagation and cultivation techniques to suit the Mekong Delta's soil and climate. It is not the first company to bring the new variety into Vietnam, but it is said to be the first to succeed in cultivating MD2.
Whereas the conventional optimal growing temperature was around 30–32°C, fields now reach 35–40°C. Amid a wide temperature swing and hard-to-read weather, the Queen variety degenerates. Switching to MD2, which has high disease and heat resistance and adapts even to the Mekong Delta's low-lying, strongly acidic land, has become the practical solution for rebuilding yield and quality.
The scale and price of the switch, in numbers
Can Tho City has set out a vision to grow pineapple cultivation to 5,500 hectares, broken down as 3,500 hectares of Queen and 2,000 hectares of MD2. Westfood is expanding MD2 at a pace of 30–50 hectares per commune per year, aiming for a scale of about 1,000 hectares by 2030. Annual export value is projected at about US$40 million. Vietnam's total pineapple cultivation area is about 52,000 hectares, with annual output of over 860,000 tonnes.
| Item | Conventional (Queen variety) | After the switch (MD2 variety) |
|---|---|---|
| Heat resistance | Degeneration and leaf wilt at 35–40°C | Adapts to high heat and acidic soil |
| Positioning in the market | Mainly domestic and canning raw material | The global standard for fresh exports |
| World market share | A regional variety | 50–55% of the world, 70–75% of the EU |
MD2 is strong on price, too. As of 2024, fresh MD2 was in a high price band even worldwide at about US$1.2 per kilogram. Moreover, product for Japan traded at about US$4,000 per tonne, said to be US$1,000–1,200 per tonne higher than product for the EU and the US. The clear existence of a market that pays well is pushing the variety switch forward.
How the origin and the industry take it
Cooperative growers speak less of the anxiety of holding fields that cannot be harvested than of the reassurance of being provided a buyer and cultivation technology as a set. By having the processor involved from the cultivation stage and providing seedlings, technology and sales channels as one, farmers can reduce the double risk of price fluctuation and reduced harvest. For the processing side, too, there is the advantage of steadily securing raw material of consistent quality and quantity.
The way they face the climate is positive, too. They reread the reality that the old variety became unviable in high heat as a switch to a variety that sells for more and the creation of added value through emission reductions. The introduction of drones and the earning of carbon credits are positioned not as a cost burden but as a future revenue source. As regional agricultural policy, too, a two-stage approach of keeping the Queen variety while increasing MD2 in a planned way shows an attitude of trying to avoid the disruption of an abrupt switch.
Implications Japanese procurement staff should read
Japan's pineapple imports in 2023 were on the scale of about 160,000 tonnes and about 19.2 billion yen, of which Philippine product accounts for more than 85%. The reality is that the raw material for processed goods such as canned and frozen pineapple depends almost entirely on Philippine product. Concentration on a single production source hits procurement prices directly if there is erratic weather or a drop in that source's supply. There have been past instances where the price of imported pineapple rose 20% due to circumstances on the production side.
Here the MD2 growing area in Vietnam's Mekong Delta emerges as a new option. If a growing area integrated from cultivation to processing develops, processing raw material such as frozen, canned and juice product can be secured in a form that is traceable from field to processing plant. What Japanese buyers should focus on now is not the fresh fruit itself but processing suitability and the integrated network. With uniform sugar content and size, MD2 makes yields in cutting, freezing and canning easy to predict and the outlook for processing costs easy to set. Value-adding through processing of the kind CAP demonstrated As in that flow, the idea of grasping raw material not as a material but as a designed supply network leads to the bargaining power of procurement staff.
Ripple into the market and supply network
The switch to MD2 is not confined to the level of a single growing area. If the integrated network functions in Can Tho and Hau Giang, the Mekong Delta will change character from fresh exports alone into a supply base for processing raw material. Vietnam's pineapple exports are growing with the EU as the largest market, and the processed-pineapple market continues to grow 5–6% a year worldwide. In the world's canned and frozen pineapple market, where the Philippines was dominant, room is emerging for Vietnam to break in as the number two.
There are also significant implications from the standpoint of forming a fruit-processing cluster. The fruit-processing cluster advancing in Dak Lak As with that, if the growing area, processing plants and export functions are geographically close, transport costs and freshness loss can be curbed. Vietnamese fruit sometimes faces oversupply as a challenge, but a fruit oversupply if it can be absorbed through processing and export, the price-decline risk can be digested within the growing area without being passed on to the demand side. MD2's integrated network can become one example of implementing that.
Points of focus you can use in practice
What Japanese frozen, canned and juice makers and raw-material trading companies can do at this stage is to verify the real strength of the local integrated network. Before purchasing, it is worth grasping the pace of expansion of cultivation area, the processing capacity of plants, quality specs (uniformity of sugar content and size), and the state of traceability. Since this is a market where fresh product for Japan moves at high prices, securing it as processing raw material at a stable price works through building relationships in the early stage of the growing area's expansion.
That it is a growing area incorporating carbon credits and emission reductions is also material for evaluation in the context of sustainability procurement. For food manufacturers who want to explain the origin of raw material and their environmental consideration to business partners and consumers, a growing area whose cultivation history can be traced becomes the procurement story itself.
Summary: visit a growing area in transition early
Can Tho's move to abandon the Queen variety degenerated by extreme heat and switch entire fields to the export-standard MD2 is a concrete example of turning a climate challenge into a business opportunity. The early stage when a growing area integrated from cultivation to processing is getting off the ground is also a good opportunity for the Japanese procurement side to build relationships. As next moves, we recommend, first, directly inquiring with Mekong Delta processors including Westfood about their spare supply capacity for processing raw material (frozen, canned, juice), and second, inspecting local processing plants and cultivation specs within 2026 and evaluating them as a risk-diversification source away from sole dependence on the Philippines. The companies that move while the growing area is still small are the ones that will hold the initiative in stable supply and price negotiations.
