One Food Group builds sixth animal feed mill in Vietnam

One Food Group Vietnam on Wednesday commenced the construction of a $45-million animal feed mill in the Mekong Delta province of Long An, its sixth facility in the country.

The plant, spanning four hectares in Nhut Chanh Industrial Park, has a designed capacity of 300,000 tons of cattle and poultry feed per annum, catering to the Mekong Delta, Ho Chi Minh City, and the southeastern province of Tay Ninh.

It is slated to become operational in the first quarter of next year, boosting the firm’s annual output to 1.1 million tons.

One Food Group Vietnam was established in September 2019 as a collaboration between Gold Coin, a member of Switzerland’s Zuellig, and Pilmico, a member of Philippines conglomerate Aboitiz. Both Zuellig and Aboitiz have operations in the animal feed sector.

Before the Long An factory, the firm has operated factories in the northern provinces of Hai Duong and Ha Nam, and the southern ones of Dong Nai, Binh Duong, and Dong Thap.

Vietnam produced 26.72 million metric tons of animal feed in 2022, up 27.72% year-on-year, becoming the eighth biggest producer in the world, according to the U.S.-based animal feed company Alltech's Agri-Food Outlook 2023 report.

The sector has recently attracted investments of many foreign players. Japfa Comfeed Vietnam Ltd. Co. on Wednesday inaugurated a feed mill and poultry slaughterhouse, with a registered capital of VND400 billion ($17.04 million) each, in the southern province of Binh Phuoc.

In March 2023, Singapore-based animal feed maker Entobel and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) have formed a partnership to scale up the former’s operations in Vietnam as part of a long-term cooperation agreement. Entobel is currently building Asia’s largest insect plant in Vietnam’s southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. The second plant aims to provide 10,000 tons of insect meal annually for aquafeed and petfood producers.

In November 2022, Norwegian major Skretting, the world’s largest maker of feed for farmed fish, inaugurated its second Vietnam factory with an annual capacity of 100,000 tons. The $24 million state-of-the-art facility, located in Long An province bordering HCMC, enables Skretting’s effective feed supply to farming provinces in Vietnam's Mekong Delta and beyond, the giant said.

Also in November 2022, Dutch agribusiness De Heus Animal Nutrition opened its first Asian animal feed premix plant worth VND200 billion ($8.04 million) in the southern province of Dong Nai. The 52,200-square-meter factory, located in the Song May Industrial Park, Trang Bom district, features modern operating lines, frozen storage facilities and a VND100 billion ($4.02 million) materials warehouse. It has an annual designed capacity of 60,000 tons.