To get Vietnamese black pepper into the EU, you must clear as many as 565 items on pesticide residues. The Vietnam Pepper and Spice Association (VPSA) calls this barrier \"the strictest in the world,\" and Lam Dong province's Hoang Nguyen cooperative cleared it by obtaining organic certification on 195.6 ha out of 986 ha and exporting about 1,300 tonnes of organic pepper. Just growing and harvesting in the field no longer cuts it; since this structure extends even to JAS certification, it is not someone else's problem for Japanese food manufacturers and spice procurement either. (A consideration based on Dan Viet reporting of 29 July 2026)<\/p>\n
According to VPSA chair Hoang Thi Lien, pepper bound for the EU market is subject to 565 items on pesticide residues. This is not merely a matter of a large number; it is a sign that the design philosophy of the standards is shifting. In January 2026, for substances suspected of carcinogenicity or endocrine disruption, the EU is moving from a risk-based to a hazard-based approach, lowering the residue ceilings for many unapproved and expired substances toward 0.01 mg\/kg, close to the detection limit.<\/p>\n
France went a step further. By decree AGRG2600034A dated 5 January 2026 (published in the official gazette on 7 January), it temporarily suspended the import and distribution within France of imported food in which certain pesticide substances banned in the EU remain at quantifiable levels. VPSA urges member companies to carry out thorough residue testing before exporting pepper and spices. In other words, it has entered a stage where \"field management\" directly decides \"whether you can enter the market.\"<\/p>\n
The one that went to break this barrier from upstream is the Dutch-affiliated Nedspice. Its Nedspice Farmers Partnership Programme (NFPP) began in Binh Phuoc province in 2013 and spread to Dak Nong and Binh Duong provinces. Currently about 3,600 households across Vietnam and India combined, covering over 14,000 ha, take part, of which about 600 households hold Rainforest Alliance certification, about 600 have completed the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA), and over 50 households have reached organic certification.<\/p>\n
The key point of the NFPP is that it treats farmers not as \"suppliers\" but as \"partners,\" providing cultivation training, market information and a premium on the purchase price as a set. Le Thanh Hung, who heads Nedspice's purchasing and sustainable-development division, says that building a transparent and sustainable value chain is at the core of the business. Behind this organizing is the back-calculation that leaving pesticide use to the farmers cannot clear the 565 residue items.<\/p>\n
The one that stacked up certification at a unit one notch larger than individual farmers is Lam Dong province's Hoang Nguyen cooperative. Founded in May 2018, it now has 202 member households and a pepper planting area of about 986 ha. Of this, it has obtained organic certification meeting the USDA, EU, JAS and Canadian standards on 195.6 ha, and has exported about 1,300 tonnes of organic pepper to date.<\/p>\n
What deserves attention is the lineup of certifications. The fact that JAS (Japanese Agricultural Standards) stands alongside USDA and the EU means this origin is already conscious of the Japanese market as an outlet. Even in the same Lam Dong province's pepper origins, the move to shift to soil-and-root cultivation without returning to heavy chemical inputs even in a high-price phase<\/a> made the cultivation method itself the issue, but what Hoang Nguyen's 986 ha shows is a different winning path: \"securing market access through the paperwork of certification.\" Cultivation quality and the mechanism by which a third party guarantees it become an export lifeline only as the two wheels of the same cart.<\/p>\n