An Dinh Technology Development and Investment Company: Successful Breakthrough in Rice Export

Established in 2005, An Dinh Technology Development and Investment Co., Ltd has continuously strived to obtain many achievements. In particular, An Dinh has contributed to enhancing the value of Vietnam’s rice products in difficult markets such as Europe, America and Japan, and surpassed major competitors such as Thailand and India in the international rice markets.

Nguyễn Thanh Nhị Engineer, CEO & Managing Director

Born and raised in Thai Binh, engineer Nguyen Thanh Nhi felt the hardships of the rice farmers. The land was crowded and the fields were mixed with old production methods; farmers had no motivation to cultivate rice due to unstable income. Therefore, from the very first days after graduating from Hanoi University of Agriculture 1 and working at the Institute of Agricultural Genetics, engineer Nguyen Thanh Nhi was passionate about how to help rural farmers. From his perspective, if the farmers could find ways to reduce the labor-intensive work, they could produce better rice seeds and yield more profit.

That is the reason engineer Nguyen Thanh Nhi founded An Dinh Technology Development and Investment Co., Ltd, with a mission of enhancing the value and creating a solid position for Vietnam’s rice products in the market. To make this happen, the company strictly follows the process of safe rice production and ensures nutrition and health for people: All the process of planting (seeding, soil making), fertilizing, planting protection drugs to harvest and post-harvest preservation has integrated the most advanced technology.

Identifying Japan as a country where people take rice as main food and the country with the most modern rice production and processing level in the world, Mr. Nhi contacted leading experts in Japan to learn about the most famous Japanese Japonica rice varieties to come up with a Japonica rice production process suitable for weather and soil conditions in Vietnam.

The pilot production was carried out on a number of “sample fields” at home in An Dinh commune, Hung Ha district, Thai Binh province. Success came from the first rice crop of 2005. The rice varieties all grew quite well, which helped An Dinh have the first products sold to the market. However, they faced new challenges of lack of production land, machines, technology, markets and crops.

Mr. Nhi went directly to each field and spent a lot of time training farmers to do their jobs. The outcome surprised everyone and helped An Dinh continue to replicate the models to other areas of Thai Binh and other provinces such as Hung Yen, Nam Dinh, Hai Duong, Hai Phong, Bac Giang and some of Mekong Delta provinces. Along with completing the production process, Mr. Nhi and his Japanese partners researched, designed as well as gradually purchased some modern machinery and equipment to improve the quality of rice. As a result, An Dinh quickly exported higher quality rice products to more markets.

In 2010, An Dinh continued to invest in a Japanese rice factory with drying systems, warehouses, silos, equipment lines, and advanced technology for post-harvesting rice. The general equipment standardized in Japan, Thailand and Vietnam has been installed in each stage. The factory can dry 500 tons of fresh rice and about 100 tons of high-grade rice products per day, with a total investment of tens of millions of USD on an area of 2.4 hectares in Ngoc Lam Industrial Park in Hung Yen province. It is considered a base for processing the high-quality Japanese rice products in line with the ISO 22000: 2005 standards; HACCP and Halal standards.

An Dinh Japonica rice brand has gained more and more trust from customers. With more than 70% of market share nationwide, it’s easy to find An Dinh Japonica rice in supermarket chains such as Aeon, BigC, Family Mart, Intimex, and Kmart. An Dinh rice is still available in many Korean and Japanese restaurants nationwide. To choose suitable products, you can access the official website of An Dinh: https://andinh.com.vn.

Technology has helped An Dinh produce rice successfully. 100% of the seeds of the company are imported directly from Japan. The Japanese rice products, such as Koshi Hikari, Akita Komachi, and Koshi Hikari, are produced under a clean agricultural process. Therefore, these products still retain the delicious taste, characteristic flexibility and high nutritional content of the land of the rising sun, but are suitable for the physical needs of Vietnamese people, especially children, the elderly and pregnant women. Japanese rice produced by An Dinh has gained the trust of tens of thousands of Japanese and Korean customers living and working in Vietnam for many years.

Currently, due to the increasing demand of Vietnamese rice products of high quality and safety, An Dinh has deployed the production of specialty rice ST24, ST25 in Soc Trang and Bac Lieu provinces. These are particularly delicious rice varieties selected by Labor Hero Ho Quang Cua. An Dinh has developed the brand of fragrant rice “TOMRICE”, which limits the use of fertilizers and does not use preservatives toxic to plant protection. This helps the company’s products meet export standards to the EU and bring a great taste to the Vietnamese people.

An Dinh has joined hands with other domestic enterprises to bring the Vietnamese brand to many markets like Australia, New Zealand, Russia, the U.S, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong (China), Italy and Poland. In particular, An Dinh’s rice has actually met the most stringent quality criteria in the world.

From 2017 to 2020, An Dinh was selected to participate in the competition in the AVERP Project, a project on sustainable rice production, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the spring crop of 2019 and the spring crop of 2020, An Dinh won the first and second prizes awarded by the Governments of the UK, Australia, Canada, the U.S and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with bonuses of up to US$300,000. Its rice grains have surpassed more than 600 indicators of chemical residues and pesticides, and are eligible to enter Japan, the most demanding market in the world. The Itochu Group as the contractor of the Government of Japan has become the importer of the company since May 2020.

With efforts to build a reputation from quality, An Dinh has enhanced the value of Vietnamese rice products, bringing confidence to farmers and truly becoming a trustworthy brand and the best global rice brand.

Source: Vietnam Business Forum
(Vietnam Business Forum – The Magazine of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry)