Seoul, South Korea-headquartered CJ CheilJedang Corp. has announced that it will invest 70 billion won (approximately US $63 million) to build a frozen and chilled food factory in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Vice Chairman Kim Chul-ha attended ground breaking ceremonies to kick off the construction project on July 25.
Kim Chul-ha (third from left), vice chairman of CJ CheilJedang, anticipates that the company’s new food factory in Ho Chi Minh City should be up and running by July of 2018.Situated on a 66,000-square-meter plot of land in Nha Be District’s Hiep Phuoc Industrial Park, the new facility will have capacity to produce 60,000 tons per year and is expected to be operational by July of 2018. Bibigo brand frozen dumplings (mandu), ready meals, meat-based items and kimchi will be among the products made.
CJ CheilJedang, which acquired Vietnamese kimchi distributor Kim & Kim and frozen food service company Cau Tre in 2016 and bought fish and meat packer Minh Dat Food earlier this year, hopes to generate some 700 billion won in sales in Vietnam within the next three years.
The Korean food manufacturing conglomerate has reportedly invested 230 billion won (approximately US $206 million) in South Korea, the United States, China and Russia over the past several years to enhance brand value, research and development capability, and manufacturing capacity. In 2016 it rang up 330 billion won (US $282.29 million) in dumpling sales at home and abroad. The goal is to reach the 1 trillion won mark (US $855.43 million) in Bibigo dumpling product sales by 2020, with 70% of the receipts coming from foreign markets.
