Luong Quoi Coconut Processing Company: Improving the quality of exported coconut milk

Over the past time, with the State’s investment, the courage to invest in research, innovation and technology transfer, more and more businesses have created products of great economic value and enhanced labor productivity, quality and product competitiveness.

Inevitable trend

The story of Luong Quoi Coconut Processing Co., Ltd., Ben Tre province is an example. Developed in 1997, from a small private enterprise with an investment of only a few tens of million dong, members of fewer than 10 people, the machinery mainly improved itself with a capacity of only 3,000 tons/year, but now this enterprise there were more than 700 people, the revenue in 2013 was 170 billion dong, in 2016 it increased to nearly 840 billion dong, exporting products processed from coconut such as: coconut oil, coconut milk, desiccated coconut, canned coconut water, etc to dozens of countries around the world.

Achieving that result is thanks to the enterprises bravely investing, renewing technologies and receiving timely supports from the State. Mr. Cu Van Thanh, Director of Luong Quoi Coconut Processing Company, said that from 2011 to 2012, the lowest coconut price is about 40,000 VND/12 coconuts, many people tend to cut off, not attached to coconut trees.

With the goal of perfecting VCO extraction technology, improving the quality of VCO for export, thereby creating added value in the coconut product chain and stabilizing income for coconut growers in Ben Tre and the region. In the Southwest region, the Ministry of Science and Technology has assigned the Center of Experimental Biology – the Institute of Technology Application to perform the task of “Researching and extracting pure coconut oil by non-heating technology”.

The task is under the “National Technology Innovation Program till 2020”, headed by Dr. Nguyen Phuong. The research results of the project have been transferred and successfully applied at Luong Quoi Coconut Processing Co., Ltd. Through the project, using the technology of separating pure coconut oil from fresh coconut by centrifugal method without using high temperatures, without using chemicals, has solved the problem of raising the value of coconut products, creating virgin coconut oil products (VCO – Virgin Coconut Oil) of international standard quality (according to the standards of the Asia-Pacific Coconut Association – APCC).

Thanks to investment in technological innovation, the aforementioned production process has helped to improve the value of pure coconut oil by 25% when exported. According to the statistics of Ben Tre Coconut Association, in 2016 Vietnam exported 193 tons of VCO/year (VCO cold-press technology), and now with the current technology line, the capacity of 5,000 tons/year has helped increase capacity. exported up to 26 times.

VCO products are US FDA approved to meet the requirements of the US market and BRC food into the EU market. Currently VCO products of the Company are available in the market: USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea, Denmark, Germany, UK, etc.

Productivity and Quality Office