Increasing economic viability of the Vietnamese fresh fruit industry by reducing postharvest losses

Throughout five years of implementing the project, many activities were successfully performed to achieve the academic and developmental results. The academic results include development of a Centre of Excellence on Postharvest and Processing Technology at VNUA devoted to training, research and extension services for the Vietnamese horticultural sector through improving the research infrastructure of the lab towards international standards and human capacity building through training of Master and PhD students. Furthermore, the capacities of science and technology for both Flemish and Vietnamese staff members were much enhanced through many joint research activities. As a consequence, the storage conditions for litchi, longan, and dragon fruit were optimised to maintain the quality and extend the shelf life of fresh fruit after harvest, and innovative processing technologies were developed to transform these  fruit and their waste into high value added products such as wine, jam, fruit juice, dried candy, detox tea etc. with greater storage stability. Furthermore, as many as 8 articles were published in international and national journals and more are underway. The research results were also presented at 13 workshops and conferences.

Then, knowledge and technologies developed in this project have been transferred to interested growers, cooperatives, and the local government of Binh Thuan and Hung Yen provinces through dissemination and outreach activities. The products processed from dragon fruit were presented for consumer tasting and got positive feedbacks from the public.

With all the great project outcomes, the project was granted the Bern Rode award in the category of “project excellence” by ASEA-UNINET in 2019 and gained the attention from the food companies in Vietnam. It can be concluded that both academic and developmental project objectives have been met and good impacts have been brought to the community.

Watch our summary video here.