U.S. authorities recently proposed allowing access for Vietnamese mango imports, and provided all goes smoothly the new market could become a reality for the South East Asian country this upcoming season.

As the idiom goes 'when it rains it pours', and expectations are also high in Vietnam that Australia and Taiwan will officially open up access in 2016-17.

Mia Dao

Hoang Phat Fruit Co exports between 3,000-4,000 metric tons of Vietnam's unique mango varieties depending on the season, and has been ramping up its capacity to meet the strict post-harvest requirements of importing countries.

Mia Dao, a sales executive with Hoang Phat Fruit, told www.freshfruitportal.com the group currently exported mangoes and dragon fruit to a range of markets including South Korea, Japan, China and New Zealand.

The group installed a vapor heat treatment (VHT) facility around 70km southwest of Ho Chi Minh City in 2012, and Dao said another VHT plant was currently in the works with completion expected in October or November.

"We own a factory ourselves with a vapor heat treatment machine, but America requires irradiation," Dao clarified during Asia Fruit Logistica this week in Hong Kong.

"There is only one factory in Vietnam that can do irradiation, and they’ve been doing many fruits to Europe and America. If we send to America we should work with them for irradiation treatment.

"We think we'll be ready. We pick from September until May, so we think we can have mangoes by that time. We need about one day for irradiation and one day to deliver to the USA by air," she said, adding less than 10% of the total export volume would be sent to the United States, and a likely importer has already been lined up.

She said VHT facilities would be useful for the potential new markets of Australia and Taiwan.

"We got a license for New Zealand but it's not for such large volumes, and now we hope to send to Australia hopefully this year.

"This year we really want to sell to the Taiwan market too. Taiwan is already done, we're just waiting on the final steps. We have approval, there are just some inspections."

Dao added the company's main mango varieties were Vietnamese cultivars Cat Chu and Hua Loc, as well as R2E2 which originates in Australia but is also grown in Vietnam.

www.freshfruitportal.com