​Although our meeting with the officials of the Plant Protection Division (PPD) of the Vietnamese Department of Agriculture was held on Friday the 13th , the meeting turned out to be one of the most productive and potentially successful ever. While the issue at stake, receiving approval from the Vietnamese Government for access to the Vietnamese market for fresh blueberries from America, has been the goal of the Blueberry Commission for more than 5 years, it has begun to appear that the granting of this access has been getting closer and closer. We did not receive any confirmation that access would be granted, but it does seem that we may be in the final stretch for the finish line. There are several additional steps that will be required before the market here will be open to us, but the signs are very positive. We are hopeful that access could be granted sometime in 2018. We left the PPD offices feeling very confident.
 
The remainder of our last working day of the blueberry trade mission was filled with additional visits to two potential importers and customers for Oregon blueberries. In both cases, the companies were owned and operated by a new generation of Vietnamese business people. Young (probably under 40), well spoken and fluent in English, comfortable with technology, which they incorporate into their business models.
 
The stores we visited were located on busy streets in busy neighborhoods. They were clean and bright with numerous refrigerated cases of beautifully packed fresh fruit of many different types. Signage was bright and full of messages about the healthy characteristics of the fruit, with plenty of lively artwork. The owners were all very enthusiastic about the possibility of introducing a large new source of blueberries and they all indicated that there was plenty of demand from customers. Access and customers, what more could we ask for!
 
It would be hard to imagine a more positive conclusion to our visit than this final business day. Our group will be heading home over the weekend and I will spend a few days in Hanoi as a bridge between the now concluded blueberry mission and the upcoming Trade Show in Singapore together with the Oregon Dairy Council. I’ll continue this series of blogs from Singapore, beginning on April 21st .     

​Our early Wednesday morning flight from Manila to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was uneventful and we hit the ground running. After checking in at our hotel, we used a meeting room to hold discussions with a local HCMC logistics company, that is expanding their business to hopefully include fresh fruit imports. We are familiar with them from previous visits to Vietnam and this is the firm that has imported Christmas trees from Oregon, which began in 2015. These conversations will be ongoing and clearly demonstrate the extremely important requirement to establish relationships with local companies and people. It takes a long time to gain the trust and respect of local business people, but it has been shown again and again to be a crucial component of creating a successful international program.
 
Our second meeting of the day was with the Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) officer at the US Consulate in HCMC. We have worked with Gerald Smith in the past and he has been and continues to be an excellent contact for us on our visits to Vietnam. For me, tying the pieces of any project together is a key element to a successful project. In this case, I can say that I have a photo of the ‘Christmas Tree Lady’ and Gerald Smith at a local HCMC shopping mall decorating the first Oregon tree to arrive in Vietnam for Christmas 2015.
 
After a short break for lunch (all our breaks, when we get them, are short), we headed out once again, this time for a visit to a fresh fruit importer, packer and distributor.
 
The perishable nature of fresh fruit or produce adds an extra complication to the export/import supply chain. This is further complicated by the hot and humid weather typical throughout SE Asia for the entire year. The often novel and creative solutions applied to this problem are a constant source of surprise and admiration to me. Thus it was an eye-opener for me to visit this successful HCMC importer.
 
Needless to say, the products arrive from America and elsewhere either by ocean or airfreight in refrigerated shipping containers. These are then transported to local customers, typically in the original containers from the shipping line or airline, or in smaller local refrigerated trucks. Any extra handling always creates the potential for damage if the produce is outside its protective refrigeration. It is also important to note that many, if not most, local retailers are too small to receive a full container of product at one time. However, larger, commercial cold storage facilities are relatively rare, often located in semi-remote areas (away from retail outlets) and very expensive. Our host for the afternoon has found a very clever and practical solution. He purchased several used reefer containers from a shipping line (the markings were still visible) had them patched up and the reefer units repaired and had them permanently installed at his combination retail store, packing facility, long-term storage and distribution ‘warehouse’. Amazing!
 
Our group split up a bit for dinner: some of our colleagues, who had not been to HCMC went to the famous Rex Hotel – made famous during the Vietnam Was days as the HQ for US military officers and journalists. Others of went to a longtime favorite BBQ shrimp place a few minutes walk from our hotel. Great food, great conversation and a great conclusion to a busy day.
 
Another early morning flight brought us from HCMC to Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam. We came straight from the airport to the hotel, changed clothes in two shared hotel rooms and made it to our meeting at the US Embassy with the Senior Officers of the FAS at the US Embassy Annex. We had an excellent meeting, the main subjects of which were to familiarize our colleagues new to Vietnam with details of the country’s demographics, politics and markets, and perhaps most importantly to prepare us for Friday’s meeting with Vietnam’s PPD – Plant Protection Department – the Vietnamese equivalent of our APHIS. This is a critical step in the development of our program to bring fresh Oregon blueberries to Vietnam. The process is moving towards its final steps and with the approval of the PPD, we will take a giant step towards the opening of this rapidly expanding market for products. We’re very hopeful and cautiously optimistic.
 
Finally we visited an amazing fresh fruit retailer and wholesaler, who has gone from one small Hanoi store to 39 stores across Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in just a few years. The goal is 200 stores over the next 2-3 years. They use a combination of physical retail store and e-commerce with home delivery and presently have more than 200,000 registered customers. The owners are very keen on US fresh fruit, as are their customers, and they represent a highly motivated, experienced and professional potential customer with strong interest in Oregon and Washington blueberries. Can that grand opening be getting closer?
 
Stay tuned…   

​Our delegation, now complete at eight people, began our work on Monday (April 9th) with a series of visits to local Manila fruit and food markets. Our transpacific flight is still being felt: one of our group is still without his suitcase; a second arrived a day late (on Monday morning) due to a cancelled flight on Saturday. This trip marks the first trip to Asia for two of our group and the first time to Manila for others, so there is some adjustment going on: we had a brief ‘meet the team’ introductory meting during which we were all together for the first time and met some of our fellow travelers for the first time as well.
 
Monday was a national holiday in the Philippines, called Day of Valor, more or less equivalent to Memorial Day or Veterans Day in America. Most offices, including all government offices were closed. Our plan for a tour of the Port of Manila had to be cancelled, although the port itself was in operation. This was a disappointment, but there was nothing to be done. Public and wholesale markets were open and once we learned that our port tour was off, we planned our market visits to replace the port.
 
It is hard to imagine how a city as large as Manila keeps itself fed, to say nothing of many other elements such as water supply, sanitation, trash collection, infrastructure maintenance, electricity supply and so on. Estimates of the population of Manila range from 12.8 to 21.3 million based on the area in question: Metro Manila; the greater Manila area, etc. In any event, Manila is reckoned to be the world’s most densely populated city at 42,857 people/square kilometer (111,002/square mile); much more than Mumbai (23,000/sq km); Paris (20,150/sq km), or Tokyo (10,100/sq km).
 
We saw just a very small piece of the food supply component during our visit to one of the city’s wholesale food distribution districts. Block after crowded block of food distributors of all types and sizes lined both sides of all the streets. As our focus on this trip is blueberries, we were in a fruit and produce center, with seemingly hundreds and hundreds of distributors. The streets and businesses were all crowded and busy, even on this major Filipino holiday. People eat everyday, so this distribution of food goes on everyday, 24/7, 365 days each year.
 
Getting in and out of our air-conditioned van in the Manila heat and humidity contributed to many of us hitting the infamous “Day 2 Wall”. That is, the day after an international arrival, (Sunday for us) you’re tired, but ok. On Day 2, you hit the wall of fatigue, and as the day goes on everything seems to move more slowly and you can’t wait to get back to your hotel for a rest – which we did later in the afternoon.
 
Tuesday, our last day in Manila was devoted to meetings with Government officials, both the US and Filipino governments. We met with two senior officers of the US Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), experts on the local market and all of its regulations, distribution patterns, import and export data and much, much more. These professionals perform a very similar function to that of the (possibly more) familiar FCS (Foreign Commercial Service) officers at US Embassies and Consulates around the world. After this meeting at the US Embassy, we traveled across town (with a break for lunch) to the offices of the Undersecretary for High Value Crops and Rural Credit of the Philippine Department of Agriculture. We had an excellent meeting during which we described our interest to introduce fresh US blueberries to the Philippine market. As part of this effort, an official US Government invitation has been extended to the office of the Undersecretary for a formal trade visit from the Philippines to America, perhaps as early as summer 2018.
 
We closed out day with an early dinner and back up to our rooms to pack and prepare for our Wednesday morning departure for Vietnam. As our flight from Manila to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) departs at 6:00am, we’ll be leaving our hotel at 4:00am to be sure we’re not caught in early morning traffic.
 
Away we go! The next report will come to you from Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam, after our short one day, one night stay in HCMC. 

​








​​At the suggestion of our new Export Council of Oregon Executive Committee and the ‘go head’ permission of Bryan Ostlund of the Oregon Blueberry Commission and Pete Kent of the Oregon Dairy Council, we’re going to try a new way to get out the message of the role and importance of exports in particular and international trade more generally, to the Oregon economy. I will be sending a series of emails, or call them reports or blogs if you like, to tell the tale of a three-week trip to SE Asia to assist with the marketing of fresh Oregon blueberries to the Philippines and Vietnam and Oregon Dairy products, especially cheese and ice cream, to Singapore and SE Asia.
 
There will more details about the itinerary and my traveling companions later in this series, but for now I thought I should begin at the beginning. How does a trip like this started? Do blueberry growers and cheese producers just get up one morning and say: let’s go to Asia and sell our stuff? Is this some kind of perverse vacation, or travel boondoggle, involving long airplane rides; seven-day work weeks – including meetings over here with local and US Government officials, potential customers, retail tours (amazing to discover how many US food products are already over here!), to say nothing of what you do when you get back to your room after a day fighting horrendous traffic in tropical heat and humidity in business clothes and then checking email and phone calls and family, and, and, and when you get to your room and again after dinner, if you can stay awake; days of jet-lag; different beds every few days; frequent discussions about food (what is THIS?); spending lots of time with people you don’t know (we won’t go there); and the list just grows from there.
 
So how does such a trip begin? In this case, the Dairy Council, having initially decided not to participate in a trade trip in 2018, changed their decision and I was advised on December 8, 2017, that planning for a trip would begin. The Blueberry Commission advised me of their proposed trip on January 30, 2018. Not much notice for all the planning required to put together all the pieces required for a successful trade mission. More on this later.
 
So my departure day was April 6, 2018. My travel plans were based on the itineraries put together by the two Commodity Commissions. On April 5th, my airline advised that it was time to check in. However, the carrier’s website would not allow this to happen. Two long telephone conversations were unable to either fully identify or resolve the problem, which meant an extra early arrival at PDX, just in case. Packing was mostly completed the day before and included another list of decisions: sport jacket or suit, plus dress shirts and ties (necessary for Government meetings); tropical weight clothes for all three countries where daytime temperatures average more than 90°F; check for all medications, telephone and laptop plugs, sunglass lenses, international ATM card, etc, etc; change voice mail message; etc, etc.  Boarding pass issue resolved, my flight left at 12:05pm (Apr 6th), arrived in Tokyo at 2:45pm local Tokyo time on April 7th (or 11:45pm April 6th); after passing through security in Tokyo, boarded my flight for Manila and arrived here at about 8:00pm Apr 7th Manila time, or 10:00am Apr 7th in Portland. Through customs (I used a carry-on, no checked bags) and immigration, found hotel shuttle and got to my room at about 9:30pm. So total expired time from wake-up at home to room arrival (not to sleep, just yet) was just about 30 hours. Not a bad working day, especially for the start of a weekend. There is no search for sympathy here, no one has forced any of us to do this, but it is not that easy or comfortable and you don’t get to pick your seatmate on the plane or the food (?), or the various other hassles of long distance travel.
 
So friends welcome to Manila. The ‘adventure’ begins, for some of us more so, especially one of our team whose luggage did not make it to Manila with him. No problem, there is a Marks & Spencer at a nearby mall and we took a brief shopping trip for some essentials. No one, especially not the airline, seems to have any idea where that silly bag could be, but this, too, shall pass...
 
Attached is a photo of a section of the Port of Manila from my hotel window. You can take me away from home, but once a logistics geek, always a logistics geek...!    
 
By the way, that white building in the foreground of the photo is the U.S. Embassy, we have meetings scheduled there, but more about that in a few days.
 
Stay tuned...