Sojitz-backed joint venture to challenge Australian, US beef imports

A major partnership between Japan’s trading giant Sojitz and Vietnam’s largest dairy company Vinamilk has started commercializing beef supplies in Vietnam, where American and Australian beef imports are already popular.

The $500-million Japan Vietnam Livestock Co. (JVL), set up in September last year as a 51-49 joint venture between Vinamilk subsidiary Vilico and Sojitz, has made the Yuki Beef brand available at supermarkets and shopping malls across Vietnam. The brand sources meat from cattle mostly imported from Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.

Vilico chairwoman Mai Kieu Lien told her company’s annual general meeting Wednesday that Vilico, right after the joint venture was set up, built a distribution network focusing on the three channels of hotels and restaurants, shopping malls and supermarkets, and retail points. The latter is the fastest way to family kitchens, she said.

Vilico has in hand a beef project in the northern province of Vinh Phuc with 30,000 cattle in scale and a designed processing capacity of 100 head per day, including packing. The project investment is VND2,985 billion ($128.77 million).

The shareholder meeting approved Vilico’s plans to transfer the entire project to JVL for management, operation, and development.

In addition, JVL plans to invest VND1,185 billion ($51.12 million) to build an additional cattle breeding facility to further support the project. The joint venture is looking for a project site.

When Sojitz and Vinamilk set up JVL last September, the partnership’s first phase was scheduled to deliver beef in early 2023. The goal is to process an annual 30,000 head of cattle a year to provide about 10,000 tons of beef, with both domestic and overseas markets targeted.

Vinamilk is also a leading nutrition company in the Vietnamese market where Japanese beef already has fans. The market reportedly consumes some 650,000 tons of beef a year, comprising 200,000 tons of imports, mostly from Australia and the U.S.