This orientation was shared by Mr. Alex Atsushi Kobayashi, Managing Director of International Business of Morinaga Milk Industry Co., Ltd., during a visit to the Morinaga Nutritional Foods Vietnam Factory in Thai Nguyen - which is producing many familiar products on the market, including the ZinZin milk brand.
According to a representative of Morinaga Milk, Vietnam is not only a potential consumer market but is also considered a strategic location for the group to develop production capacity and gradually participate deeper in the supply chain in the region.
Entering the Vietnamese market in 2010, Morinaga Milk is currently operating through three units including Morinaga Nutritional Foods Vietnam, Morinaga Le May Vietnam and Morinaga Milk Vietnam. In which, the Morinaga Nutritional Foods Vietnam Factory in Thai Nguyen is built on an area of more than 39,000 m2, creating jobs for nearly 300 local workers.
The factory is currently a place to produce many products serving the domestic market. Here, the enterprise operates an automatic production line system from mixing raw materials, fermentation, sterilization to packaging finished products.
The application of automation technology helps reduce dependence on manual operations, while improving quality control and maintaining product uniformity throughout the production process. In parallel, Morinaga Milk also applies a quality management system inherited from more than 100 years of production experience in Japan, with a multi-layered control process to meet food safety requirements.
According to businesses, investing in factories in Vietnam is not only to meet domestic consumption needs but also to create a foundation for expanding production operations in the future. This is part of Morinaga Milk's long-term development strategy in Asia, in which Vietnam is expected to take on an increasingly important role in the group's production network.
Besides improving production capacity, sustainable development is also one of the orientations that Morinaga Milk focuses on in the factory operation process. The company said that it regularly monitors the amount of electricity, water, raw materials used as well as the amount of waste generated to optimize production efficiency and reduce environmental impact.
Since 2023, the plant has put into operation biomass boilers using wood waste as fuel to partially replace fossil fuels. By 2024, the rooftop solar power system with a capacity of about 0.9 MW will continue to be invested to supplement renewable energy sources to serve production activities. According to the business, the combination of these solutions helps reduce about 2,700 tons of CO2 emissions per year compared to before deployment.
Representatives of Morinaga Milk assessed that Vietnam is possessing many advantages to become an important destination in the regional supply chain. In the coming time, the group said it will continue to invest in technology, production and human resources, aiming to develop Vietnam into one of the important production and export facilities in Southeast Asia.
