In Mai Son, Son La province in northwestern Vietnam, large custard apples that grow to 0.8–1.3 kg each have been surrounded by buyers at the field edge from the very first day of harvest, with a steady, unbroken stream of orders. Slopes that were once subsistence plots of maize and cassava have turned into a fruit-growing region generating 1.5–1.8 billion dong (about 8.57–10.29 million yen) in profit per household, through replanting with Thai, Taiwanese and 'sau rieng' (durian) varieties and selling via live-streaming. For Japanese fresh-produce buyers, it is worth reading as a real example of small mountain farmers achieving both unit price and turnover through direct-from-farm sales and e-commerce alone.
Of Mai Son's 1,160 ha, 920 ha are bearing fruit, and 9,000 tonnes a year come down from the mountains
Mai Son's custard apple area is 1,160 ha, of which 920 ha have already entered the harvest period, bringing annual output to roughly 9,000 tonnes. Because the area sits at high altitude with a large day-night temperature gap, the flesh takes on sugar readily. It was previously poor land planted mainly with maize and cassava, where cash income was thin and many households depended on migrant labor.
Within the district, cooperatives serve as the core and the framework of contract farming is spreading. The partnered area overseen by cooperative chairman Nguyen Huu Tu is about 300 ha, from which 6,500 tonnes ship steadily each year. By this calculation, a little over 70% of the region's total output rides on planned supply through the cooperative, creating a structure in which prices are less likely to collapse at the harvest peak.
The custard apple harvest concentrates from summer into early autumn. Because local varieties from many areas all hit the market at the same time, making the same fruit as other regions drags you into price competition. The path Mai Son chose was to raise its price tier with a differentiated variety—larger fruit with fewer seeds. Within Vietnam, large, low-seed custard apples are growing in demand for gifts and urban supermarkets, and a northwestern province saddled with poor land has captured that demand.
0.8–1.3 kg each, 30,000–40,000 dong at the field edge; Mr. Hoi earns 1.5 billion dong on 4 ha
The fruit size is in a different league from conventional local custard apples, with top grades topping 1.3 kg each. The field-edge trading price is 30,000–40,000 dong per kg (about 170–230 yen), and the moment harvest begins, traders and individual buyers line up. Farmer Nguyen Quoc Hoi expects about 80 tonnes from 4 ha and, after deducting costs, calculates a profit of more than 1.5 billion dong (about 8.57 million yen). Another farmer, Nguyen Huu Long, has 3 of his 5 ha bearing fruit and expects 1.8 billion dong (about 10.29 million yen) from 60 tonnes.
| Item | Mr. Hoi | Mr. Long |
|---|---|---|
| Cultivated area | 4ha | 5 ha (3 ha harvested) |
| Expected harvest | About 80 tonnes | About 60 tonnes |
| Expected profit | Over 1.5 billion dong (about 8.57 million yen) | 1.8 billion dong (about 10.29 million yen) |
Currency figures are approximate at 1 yen ≈ 175 dong and 1 USD ≈ 148 yen. Field-edge prices and profits are the farmers' self-reported figures in the original article and vary by grading and by year.
Do Le Thuy's live-streams take 100–200 orders a day and move 2 tonnes daily
What underpins this region's growth is a sales approach that does not hand everything over to wholesalers. Producer Do Le Thuy sells by live-stream from a smartphone, taking 100–200 orders a day and, on busy days, delivering 2 tonnes directly to consumers. She shows the harvest and the weight of the fruit on screen while quoting prices, connecting field to table with no middleman. Large, good-looking custard apples suit video-driven selling well.
Combining direct sales with live selling lets farmers spread out shipments that tend to pile up at the harvest peak. Even when market prices fall, they can move produce to a base of repeat buyers at a steady unit price, making farmers' take-home earnings easier to predict. With the share that would have gone to middlemen eliminated, producers keep more even at the same field-edge price, which they can reinvest in the next year's seedlings and materials. In the north, by pairing nighttime LED lighting with tourism, the case of Tuyen Quang building up dragon fruit profits also exists, and moves by mountain fruit growers to redesign their very sales channels are overlapping across many areas.
That said, this way of selling lives or dies by the fruit's appearance and freshness. If the large fruit shown on the live-stream does not arrive as promised, repeat buyers drift away. Mai Son's farmers put effort into thinning and grading partly so that the physical product does not betray the quality shown on screen. What sets this apart from ordinary direct sales is that how they sell and how they grow are joined in a single line.
Replanting with Thai, Taiwanese and 'sau rieng' varieties changed how subsistence land earns
What is planted in Mai Son are the Thai and Taiwanese varieties, plus a large-fruited variety with rich flesh that bears the name 'sau rieng' (durian). All have bigger fruit, fewer seeds and more edible flesh than local varieties. Because both yield and unit price rise, the same area brings gross income several to more than ten times that of maize. In Son La province, the shift in which maize fields are replaced by Arabica and fruit is advancing, and custard apple is one strand of that trend.
It is not as simple as 'switch varieties and they sell.' Growing large fruit requires managing thinning, fertilizing and pruning. Large fruit clears at the field edge precisely because the cooperative shares seedlings and techniques and imposes cultivation management that staggers the harvest period. The way individual farmers earn by tightening management tree by tree Vietnamese durian farmers who build their economics on a per-tree basis shares the same thinking.
Why Japanese importers read Son La as a textbook in direct-from-farm sales
Because of its short shelf life and the difficulty of ripening, custard apple is not an item whose fresh import to Japan will move quickly. Even so, the Son La case leaves two lessons for Japanese fresh-produce and processing buyers. One is that when a region sheds its reliance on wholesalers and holds up unit prices through live selling, its asking price at contract time tends to run higher. The other is that large, low-seed premium varieties are increasing across whole areas at the cooperative level, leaving room for them to become sourcing candidates in future as processing materials such as puree, dried fruit and frozen pulp.
What to watch for is that the regions commanding good unit prices through domestic direct sales have the weakest incentive to turn to the hassle of exporting. For farmers who sell out same-day via live selling, the burden of newly arranging the growing-area codes, pesticide-residue testing and ripening/cold-chain logistics that export requires rarely pays off. If the Japanese side wants to partner, the region's interest will turn only once you go as far as an annual contract for processing material, or an arrangement in which grading and primary processing are handled locally. Son La is better thought of not as 'a target because it hasn't reached Japan yet' but as a region where you should first work out 'why it hasn't.'
In practice, you want to nail down the following points early.
- The starting point for deals is the cooperative rather than individual farmers. Confirm partnered area and shipment plans at the chairman level.
- The field-edge price baseline is 30,000–40,000 dong per kg. Regions with repeat buyers from live selling leave little room for discounts.
- Inquiries for processing are more realistic than for fresh fruit. Assuming variation in ripening, align on specifications for puree and frozen forms.
- The Thai, Taiwanese and 'sau rieng' varieties differ in flesh richness and seed count. Specify the variety that fits your use.
Behind subsistence slopes turning in just a few years into a fruit region with annual revenue in the hundreds of millions of dong lie a swap of varieties and a sales design that sells everything itself without wholesalers. Even if the day you see Son La custard apples on Japanese store shelves is still far off, how the region protects its unit price and at which contact point negotiations begin is an ongoing development that buyers who want to diversify sourcing should be watching now.
