Metro Cash&Carry training helps farmers improve quality standards

HCM CITY — More than 19,000 Vietnamese farmers and fishermen have been trained by the Germany-based supermarket chain Metro Cash&Carry, according to a report released by Metro Cash&Carry Viet Nam.

The report was released during a visit made by the German Minister for Economic and Cooperation Development, Dirk Niebel, to Metro An Phu in HCM City's District 2 on Tuesday.

Niebel met and talked with some of Metro's Vietnamese GlobalGAP suppliers.

Many farmers and small cooperatives have achieved Global-GAP certification for fruits like pomelo, mango and star apple, and have found new markets abroad.

Global-GAP certification is one of the subjects of the training programme that Metro provides Vietnamese farmers with the cooperation of GTZ, a German development investment organisation.

Global-GAP certification indicates that a product is certified as achieving international quality and safety standards for exportation.

Nam Roi pomelo (from My Hoa in Vinh Long Province), Cat Hoa Loc mango (Hau River Farm in Can Tho), Lo Ren star apple (Vinh Kim in Tien Giang Province) are some of Viet Nam's fruits that have received Global-GAP certification.

Since 2002, Metro has invested more than 1 million euros to support developing Viet Nam's fresh produce supply chain, including training local farmers to implement and complete certification by international standards, according to the Metro report.

"We are serving more than 600,000 business customers in Viet Nam who should later provide the end consumer high quality and safe products. By setting up a group-wide quality management system from farm to fork, Metro improves every single step of the local supply chain in Viet Nam, and creates a win-win partnership with its professional customers and the local farmers," Randy Guttery, managing director of Metro Cash&Carry Viet Nam, said. — VNS