Mr. Don Rubright, CEO of CPKelco (a company of Huber Corporation) told of the potential of food and beverage industry and the company’s business strategies in Vietnam. He just paid a visit to HCMC on August 3^rd and also joined the meeting with Vietnam leading food producers organized on the same day. 

Would you please give a short introduction of CPKelco global and its business activities in Vietnam?

CPKelco is the preferred innovation leader in the production of natural hydrocolloids, including Pectin, Carrageenan, CMC, Gellan gum & Xanthan gum. CPK is owned by Huber family. Huber has more than 125 years history as family owned business in US and have been through 6 generations as part of this family owner ship. CPKelco is a Global company with local reach and our Regional HQ for Asia Pacific is located in Shanghai China. Our Regional Hub office for South East Asia is located in Singapore and CPKelco have local people in most SEA countries in order to stay close with our customers. Vietnam is a key market for CPKelco in Asia Pacific and is described as part of the Global CPKelco strategy and a such Vietnam receives strong attention from our Centers of Excellence as well as our Regional Technical and Marketing people.

How would you define the Vietnam food market?

The Vietnamese food market is growing very rapidly and as ingredient supplier we will have to keep up with this pace. We have a key account strategy, which is in place in Vietnam as well, but we need also to serve well at new entrepreneurial players starting the vietnames market, as these often also have needs for innovation and new development, as well as seeking safe and consistent high quality products. 

How would you evaluate your company business in this market?

Since we have partnered up with a strategic channel to market partner and have our own staff situated in HCMC, we have received much recognition in the market place. For CPKelco it is important to understand the customer needs and with local CPKelco representation partnered up with local channel to market partner, we are enabled to understand our customers better. We will continue this strategy and both CPKelco and our partner in Vietnam will continue to invest in lab and more resources going forward. With the growth that CPKelco have achieved in Vietnam, I will describe our business in Vietnam as very successful and I am very happy with that, which shows we have the right strategy and allocate right resources to fill the needs.

How is the Vietnam market growth rate in comparison to other countries in the region, and how do you foresee it in the next 5 year?

In SEA we aknowledge Thailand as a mature market, which we have been operating through the growth years in the food and beverage industries and as such this is now our largest market for SEA. Countries like Vietnam and Indonesia that are in developmental stages in several application segments have higher growth rates. With our localized organization, we measure the growth rates in the industries and at our customers and thereby try to stay in front of the develeopments. With our profile as a company being "The What If you can" company, we innovate and develop new solutions effeciently and according to our customers requests.

We foresee minimum the same growth rates or even higher growth rates in the next 5 years and we as a company will invest in resources and support functions to support these growth rates.

Could you please share with us your company’s business strategies in VN for the near future?

CPKelco identifies Vietnam as a strong growth opportunity and we have Vietnam mentioned within our Global strategy. This ensures full attention from our centers of excellence and our local AP regional Hub centers as well as attention from other support functions such as Customer service and Marketing. We have a long term plan for Vietnam, which includes heavy investments in resources, lab facilities and moving more support functions from our Singapore Hub Center to Vietnam itself. We are also scoping opportunities for production in Vietnam, which will be essential to stay close to our customers. We believe in Vietnam and we will continue to invest.