Improving the quality and value of tea products in Nghe An

(Baonghean.vn) - Tea is one of Nghe An's main agricultural export products. To increase output and value from tea production and processing, raw material growers and processing enterprises need to closely cooperate.

Nghe An currently has 86 tea processing lines with a total designed capacity of 602 tons of fresh buds/day. The province's annual output of fresh tea buds is about 67,394 tons, and the processing output is 12,000 tons of various types of dried tea buds. Of which, Nghe An Tea Development and Investment Company Limited purchases and processes 32,000 tons of raw materials, with a processing output of 6,400 tons.

Nghe An currently has 86 tea processing facilities. Photo: Hoang Vinh

This enterprise currently has 8 green tea processing lines with a capacity of 72 tons of tea buds/day and 5 CTC tea processing lines (black tea) with a capacity of 80 tons of tea buds/day), total processing capacity of 152 tons of tea buds/day and on peak days can process nearly 200 tons.

Mr. Ho Viet An - General Director of Nghe An Tea Investment and Development Company Limited said: "In 2015, the company's export turnover reached 6 million USD, and in the first quarter of 2016, it reached 700,000 USD. The tea export market still maintains export contracts to traditional markets in South Asia, the Middle East... while expanding to new markets in the EU, Egypt, Japan, Taiwan, China... and the company is currently promoting market expansion to the US and Japan."

However, the difficulty is that raw materials are not enough, so many factories are running below their designed capacity. Currently, production lines in the province reach a capacity of 40% - 58%. The fact that private processing facilities produce according to the trend leads to the total tea processing capacity currently exceeding 2 times the raw material output, causing an imbalance between the processing industry and raw material production.

Thanh Thuy and Thanh Chuong people import tea for local tea processing facilities.

Meanwhile, the management of raw material planning associated with processing factories is scattered. Therefore, the current issue is to focus on linking and improving the capacity of production households. Moving towards a close agreement between factories and raw material suppliers to ensure a stable source of raw materials for production.

Along with that, processing facilities and tea growers need to coordinate to control food safety well so that products can enter markets of countries with high standards. In addition, the agricultural sector and tea businesses also need to research the structure of new varieties with high productivity and good quality to develop the tea processing industry sustainably.

Thu Huyen