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Trung Nguyen Legend makes global expansion with G7 instant coffee

While Vietnam is known for being one of the largest Robusta producers in the world, its domestic industry is focusing on exporting a finished product over green beans. The Vietnamese roaster Trung Nguyên Legend is at the forefront of the local coffee industry, with launch of its Trung Nguyên, Trung Nguyên Legend, and G7 instant coffee products range offering drinkers a sense of awakening and creativity in more than 80 countries and territories. Founder and CEO Dang Le Nguyen Vu, better known as “Chairman Vu”, launched the instant coffee G7 brand (stands for Group of Seven – the world’s seven largest advanced economies) in 2003. As soon as it was launched, the instant coffee won consumers’ hearts around the globe. Its blind testing found G7 has a selection rate of 89 per cent. Even now, through creativity and constant attempts, G7 and its other coffee products continue to make a mark on coffee lovers around the world as a powerful energy source. Despite Vietnam’s long coffee heritage, the local manufacturers don’t always receive the international respect they deserve. While Vietnam is the second largest coffee country and produces the best Robusta coffee beans in the world, so far, the value of Vietnamese coffee still largely belongs to the low-end and crude-export segment, which has not been properly shaped by the industry and the nation’s inherent position. Trung Nguyên Legend hopes its origin-roasted coffee – including the G7 range – elevates consumers and foreign industry’s understanding of Vietnamese coffee.  While other reputable coffee companies see coffee as a regular drink, only it honours coffee as a special energy source for a strong and creative mind. This different mindset comes from studying the history of mankind and the effect of coffee as a source of conscious energy for great men in their journey to making great discoveries. It is the connection between the success of great people and coffee which inspires Trung Nguyên Legend to create coffee products which offer a magical source of energy that spurs human creativity to succeed. With the best robusta coffee beans in the world, know-how that cannot be copied, and nano-grinding technology, the G7 coffee is grinded as small as a nanometer and processes it in negative temperature conditions to maintain coffee quality.  Trung Nguyên Legend is proud to be the first group in Vietnam to apply advanced nanotechnology to coffee’s manufacturing process, helping to preserve delicious ground coffee’s freshness and flavour. Nano-grinding retains 100 per cent of the coffee essence, bringing about heightened awareness in the consumer. Significant research also shows that food at the micro level will be better absorbed by the body, meaning the nutrients and components that stimulate the brain, like coffee, will be fully absorbed.  G7, Trung Nguyên, and other Trung Nguyên Legend products have made a strong impression in more than 80 countries and territories. These products have been selected to serve at global summits such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Asia–Europe Meeting, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the World Economic Forum. G7’s growth in international popularity is best embodied in its recent uptake in the United States, where Trung Nguyên Legend believes that consumers benefit from G7’s “universal brain’s remedy stimulation to boost creativity” qualities.  Beginning in April 2019, G7 is distributed in the nation’s leading retail supermarket chain, Costco. Since then, G7 export orders to the US have been continuously improved as it’s gradually picked up by American consumers. The “number one” Vietnamese coffee considers joining Costco’s nearly 800 points of sale in the US – the world’s largest consumption centre – a stepping stone for G7 to quickly penetrate other countries and confirm its strong position globally. Besides America, key growth markets for Trung Nguyên Legend include China, Russia, Japan, and Korea, with G7 playing a particularly important role in this global growth, contributing effectively to export sales. For many consecutive years, G7 has maintained the leading position on many popular product rankings, including Nielsen, Kantar Worldpanel, AllTopGuide, and Ipsos Vietnam. In March 2017, AllTopGuide rated G7 as a “favourite product across Southeast Asia”.  More recently, Chinese branding agency Chnbrand announced G7 as number one in the country’s top 13 most popular and beloved instant coffee brands. With a potential market of 1.3 billion people, entering China is a priority for many coffee brands around the world, and Trung Nguyên Legend is not an exception. Thanks to bringing a strong awakening energy source from quality to aroma, and combining it with nice designs, G7 has been voted the favourite and most trusted instant coffee brand, especially by Chinese youth. G7 is now widely available in China through supermarkets, convenience stores, wholesale stores, retail points, and HoReCa channels, as well as online flagships such as Alibaba. A part of Trung Nguyên Legend’s Chinese success can be attributed to launching individualised products, such as the G7 3in1 Paper Cup, and embracing the country’s social media. On WeChat – China’s most popular messaging app – the G7 3in1 Paper Cup is an emoji and widely shared among social networks and communities. One of those rare products, G7 becomes an emotional messenger, bringing friends closer together. The coffee lovers of China also enthusiastically shared images of the G7 3in1 Paper Cup on social networking sites like Weibo and Tik Tok as a greeting when Trung Nguyên Legend launched the product in March 2019. While China is a focus for Trung Nguyên Legend, the rest of the market has potential as well. In early 2019, G7 achieved a growth rate of nearly 200 per cent throughout Asia, dispersed at a wide range of supermarkets, trade centres, convenience stores, e-commercial channels, and pharmacy systems. This is exemplified in fastidious markets like Korea, where G7 appears in supermarket chains Lotte Mart, Emart, and Homeplus with 122, 356, and 530 stores, respectively. With strong penetration in Asia and America, Trung Nguyên Legend’s next goal is to conquer European instant coffee markets. G7’s quality and taste are well-liked by European consumers. Recently in the Garden 2019 Trade Fair in Czech Republic, the Trung Nguyên Legend booth attracted more than 5500 visitors. G7’s LED billboards are also lit up and appear widely on buildings across Russia. Trung Nguyên Legend hopes Europe will soon learn to embrace G7 and Vietnamese coffee as the US and Asia already do. Just as it has throughout its 24-year journey, Trung Nguyên Legend will continue to improve the competitiveness of Vietnamese coffee in the international arena while realising its global aspirations. As will G7, the “leading Vietnamese coffee”, providing a strong boost of energy, promoting creativity, and embodying the awakening power of coffee. This article was sponsored by Trung Nguyên Legend. For more information, visit www.trung-nguyen-online.com Follow Global Coffee Report on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter for up-to-date news and analysis of the global coffee industry.

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