Vietnam cafe heads to Middle East

Vietnamese coffee brand Trung Nguyen is to expand into the United Arab Emirates.

Trung Nguyen is Vietnam’s largest manufacturer and distributor of packaged coffee under its own and G7 brands and has one of the nation’s largest branded coffee chains.

Dubai-based Global Hotels Management (GHM) has secured franchise rights for the brand in the UAE and will open two Trung Nguyen coffee shops in Dubai within six months.

Over the next five years, GMH plans to open about 100 coffee shops throughout the Middle East. It has the territory rights to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain as well.

Trung Nguyen Dubai stand

The company will also look at business opportunities for the Trung Nguyen packaged coffee, especially hotels, supermarkets and airlines, with instant coffee sachets to be marketed from next year.

Trung Nguyen – possibly the only Vietnamese retail brand known outside the country and with a cafe in the Shoppes at Marina Bay in Singapore already – will be positioned as a price leader against more well known European coffee brands.

Nguyen Nguyen, the GM of Trung Nguyen, said people in Dubai and the Middle East are familiar with western coffee “but if we develop a new style from Asia, if we can make people aware of that, the market can be developed”.

Trung Nguyen Dubai deal

Nguyen, speaking at the recent International Coffee and Tea Festival in Dubai, added: “Vietnamese coffee is strong and suitable for the tastes here.”

 

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