In the Cau Dat area of Da Lat, Lam Dong Province, in Vietnam's Central Highlands, a cooperative betting on organic Arabica is trying to break out of a business reliant on green beans. The organic farming service cooperative Song Vu holds quality through selecting fully ripe cherries and processing, and is set to cut off the flow of shipping green beans cheaply as is and advance to deep processing. This move to integrate from cultivation through processing in a producing area above 1,600 m elevation is a clue to a new sourcing source for Japanese roasters seeking specialty beans whose producing area's face can be seen.<\/p>\n
Song Vu was founded in 2019 in the Cau Dat area of Da Lat. Its head is Nguyen Song Vu, and in addition to 7 full members, 45 farming households cooperate in production. Certified organic Arabica exceeds 50 hectares, with a further over 100 hectares in the process of converting to organic. The growing area is a cool highland above 1,600 m, where soil-building is advanced mainly with organic matter and microbial inputs, holding down chemical fertilizer. The harvest is by hand, selecting only ripe cherries, aiming to even up quality from the entrance of processing.<\/p>\n
Where the cooperative is headed is processing that does not stop at shipping green beans. It handles roasting, grinding, and packaging itself, shifting the center of the business from selling raw material to selling product. The producing area is trying to stand on the side that takes part in pricing, rather than ending as a price-taker.<\/p>\n
Cau Dat has been an Arabica producing area since the French colonial period, where the day-night temperature difference and high elevation nurture the bean's acidity and aroma. Vietnamese coffee is mostly Robusta by export volume, flowing in bulk as raw material for instant and industrial use. In that market, low unit prices and price swings make small farmers' incomes unstable.<\/p>\n
Organic and deep processing are a choice to put distance between themselves and that volume competition. Certification and processing give it a quality story, and it chooses buyers by quality rather than volume. Organic certification, however, requires a conversion period of about two years, during which it can only sell as a conventional product even if yield drops. How to get over the conversion cost is the producing area's real-world wall.<\/p>\n
Cau Dat's elevation exceeds 1,600 meters. This height makes the gap between daytime and nighttime temperatures large and advances the bean's ripening slowly. Slowly ripened fruit accumulates more sugar and tends to show layers of acidity and sweetness. Only when elevation, variety, and hand-picked selection mesh does it become a bean in a different price range from mass-produced Robusta. Song Vu's attempt to hold processing and even deeper processing in-house is to guarantee that quality with its own hands to the end.<\/p>\n
| Item<\/th>\n | Details<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n |
|---|---|
| Established<\/td>\n | 2019<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Location<\/td>\n | Cau Dat, Da Lat, Lam Dong Province (Xuan Truong)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Full members<\/td>\n | 7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Linked farming households<\/td>\n | 45 households<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Certified organic<\/td>\n | over 50 hectares<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| In conversion<\/td>\n | over 100 hectares<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Elevation<\/td>\n | over 1,600 meters<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Variety<\/td>\n | Arabica<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Yield guide<\/td>\n | 2\u20132.5 tonnes per hectare (lower than conventional)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n What the figures show is a producing area that went all-in on quality and certification even at the cost of lower yield than conventional cultivation. A yield of 2\u20132.5 tonnes per hectare shows it stands on a different footing from a model that earns by volume.<\/p>\n Who bears the cost of the two-year conversion<\/h2>\nOrganizing what is said locally, the producing area's worries boil down to three. One is the funding burden of the conversion period, during which raising quality is hard to reflect in price until it reaches organic certification. The second is the thinness of sales channels, where even high quality does not guarantee a buyer will pay a premium. The third is the intent to progress to turning out product, since green beans alone give no pricing power. All are challenges common to a producing area fighting outside the mass-production export structure.<\/p>\n This price gap is recorded in Quang Tri Arabica, also in the Central region. the pricing gap between 1 kg of green beans and 1 kg of product<\/a> explains, just as it is, the reason a producing area steps into processing.<\/p>\n For Japanese self-roasting shops and roasters, a producing area like Song Vu becomes a counterpart that can be evaluated on concrete conditions: 'small lot, high elevation, in organic conversion.' If ripe-cherry selection and processing are managed on the producing-area side, quality variation such as the mixing in of defective beans and lot differences can be reduced at the entrance. Once organic certification is complete, the background information that can be conveyed in-store also increases.<\/p>\n On the other hand, beans in conversion cannot be sold as 'organic.' The buying side needs to confirm with the producing area the timing of certification completion and the current status, and reflect it correctly on labeling. In Europe's EUDR (deforestation regulation) too there is a flow of certified lots carrying a premium, and the price gap of compliant lots<\/a> gives a clue to Japanese sourcing decisions as well.<\/p>\n |