ProFound senior consultant Robbie Hogervorst joined the Helvetas buyer mission to South East Asia to identify business opportunities for Biotrade products and actions needed to make business happen. Organic buyers Traditional Medicinals (USA) and Organic Herb Trading Company (UK) met with companies from Vietnam and Laos. Organic Herb Trading company also visited suppliers in Myanmar.
BioTrade products in Southeast Asia
The main focus of the mission was on suppliers producing indigenous spices and organically produced local varieties of commodity spices, such as turmeric and ginger. The buyers also explored options for medicinal and aromatic plants and local herbal medicine traditions. In general, there are good options for high quality products due to clean production sites for example. Story telling opportunities are ample, with high levels of community benefits and biodiversity conservation.
Robbie is currently at SIAL, where he will take the opportunity to discuss the next steps with companies from Vietnam. The Helvetas/ProFound team will be back in Southeast Asia in November and December. At that time they will identify how lessons learned from the October mission and the SIAL trade fair can be applied in market entry strategy and matchmaking activities in 2019 with other buyers in Europe and North America.
