Tetra Pak, DenEast partnership to offer BLOOM.® innovation services for liquid food and beverages

Over in Vietnam, a country of 100 million strong population, a partnership between Tetra Pak with DenEast, a dedicated contract manufacturer, has led to the launch of BLOOM., a world class one-stop innovation centre for liquid food and beverages in July 2023.

BLOOM. is Vietnam’s first global innovation centre which aims to serve and support small, medium to large enterprises and brand owners in this country and across the region. With rising competition, BLOOM. helps clients to fast-track introduction of new products ensuring higher chances of success in the marketplace without having to worry over cost of production and equipment. Here at BLOOM., located within DenEast’ 75,000 sq.metre manufacturing site, clients have access to sophisticated equipment and its team’s global sourcing, product and market expertise.

Johan Boden, CEO of DenEast Vietnam Co., Ltd said, “BLOOM. was created to help brand owners to accelerate their innovation and product launches to the market. Together with Tetra Pak’s vast and accumulated knowledge across 10 Product Development Centers worldwide and our manufacturing set up and experience, BLOOM. represents a unique set up, where competence and sophisticated technologies in a one-stop solution for liquid food innovation. We help our customers to reach the market at a minimum cost with no capital requirement starting with acceleration laboratory, going to small trials finalized by graduation of commercial size volumes.”

Swedish-based DenEast arrived in Vietnam in 2016 as it seeks to explore opportunities in the local market and Southeast Asian region. According to Mr Boden, “We partner with Tetra Pak in Vietnam, a country where most or all of the contract manufacturers were branded companies with excess capacity.” DenEast, being a dedicated contract manufacturer, focuses its entire effort on customers and their supply chain and manufacturing requirements.

BLOOM. – Customer Experience

Thuy Nguyen, Marketing Director of Tetra Pak Vietnam said, “Here at BLOOM., we offer a complete customer experience which we divide into 3 stages, namely Shape It, Launch It and Grow It.”

The ‘Shape It’ stage starts with the development of concept or idea to prototype which is validated at the BLOOM. facility. Next is ‘Launch It’ stage where the concept becomes more visualized to consumers in terms of product appearance and including packaging design. Finally, the ‘Grow It’ stage where commercial volumes production are offered if required at small scale at DenEast or can be further expanded into larger batches at DenEast or alternatively at customers’ own production sites.

All these stages allow clients to be directly involved in the trial production on site or remotely via its sophisticated camera system integrated throughout the trial production process and operated through a control room run by the product trial leader. The system which enables travel free trials is able to generate vital reports throughout the trial process including data such as temperature, pressures to flow rate. In another word, the client’s R&D team may choose to participate remotely which is a learning point from the restrictions during the pandemic and not having to be present at the facility, situated in Tan Uyen District, a few hours’ drive from HCMC. This is considered an advantage for clients who are overseas or are located far from the BLOOM. site.

BLOOM. supports all customers from small scale to large multinationals, however since its launch, it experienced larger interest from customers belonging to the Start-ups and Explorers category. Startups are new investors or new brand owners who want to enter the industry but face challenges in terms of need to focus capital spendings, expertise and available technology. Mr Boden emphasized that “DenEast, although having 6 years of experience in Vietnam, has more than 160 years industry experience and with the combination of the global industry leadership of Tetra Pak, is in a position to provide our clients with the best insights and case studies to assist them.”

Meanwhile, Explorers are existing customers of Tetra Pak and DenEast who came to BLOOM. With the ambition of launching new products. He added, “They have to start from small scale to ensure that the new project is profitable thereby exposing to lesser risk. These companies also want to achieve this without disruption to their existing production set ups.”

Ms Nguyen said, “They can come to us and tell us about their vision for tomorrow and BLOOM. will support with our sophisticated technological infrastructures offering them the most cost-efficient way to scale up including a state of the art contract packing operation that DenEast offers.”

Currently, BLOOM. customers comprise of 30% Startups and 70% Explorers, but it is open to other customers as well including established brand owners domestically, regionally and globally. BLOOM. is also actively working with enablers, representing leading ingredient and flavor houses seeking to support brand owners with their ingredient systems and formulation expertise.

BLOOM. – Collaboration with Enablers

Ingredient and Flavor Houses represent significant competences within their fields and often have their own R&D and innovation laboratories but according to Boden, are restricted to technical pilot works and not being able to offer a labeled final product that can be promoted commercially on the market. This is where BLOOM. uniquely can offer a one-stop solution. Presently, BLOOM. is collaborating with some 30 leading enablers of ingredient and flavor houses globally from 17 different countries.

BLOOM. – Offers Huge Cost Savings for Brand Owners yet Speed to Market

Boden said, “We have the whole ecosystem here under one roof including ideation, creativity workshops, acceleration laboratory, formulation testing, commercial production capacity and with all the required food certification. With the global experience in BLOOM. and collaboration partner, we are able to support Brand Owners to commercialize their products using latest technologies and industry expertise. Our clients can then focus on sales, marketing and distribution, without having to worry on spending big money on equipment, manpower and plant investment.”

Ms Nguyen gave an example of “Greenfield factory requiring at least an investment of US$30 million whereas the brand owner initially can generate an annual profit of some US$3 – 5 million a year.” Here at BLOOM., the brand owner can leapfrog through this challenging stage.

In addition, new product development usually can take up to at least 1 to 2 years, whereas BLOOM. can reduce this step from 3 to 6 months. Boden called its facilities ‘acceleration lab’ which can make small batches of 2-5 litres of products, and conduct sensory testing replicating the industrial process. In this way, it allows significant savings in terms of time and resources, in addition to minimizing product losses throughout the development process. Finally, it allows customers to be active and achieve innovation leadership on an ever evolving dynamic consumer market.

BLOOM. – The first 5 months since Inauguration

Since its inception in July, BLOOM. has already gained 16 customer engagements from 11 countries with 12 production trials. In addition, there are more than 30 visits from customers in and outside Vietnam planning to engage BLOOM. in the near future.

BLOOM. – Sophisticated technologies for a wide range of liquid food and beverages

At BLOOM., “we cover a broad range of capabilities that range from low to high acid products.” Boden mentioned low-acid products like dairy and plant based dairy alternatives which are high in consumer interest and demand. In addition, the facility is also able to work on products with particle inclusion, which is a very popular product type with the young consumers in the Asian region, for example milk tea with pearls or beverages with aloe vera, nata de coco, jellies and chia seeds, to name a few.

Apart from these, BLOOM. also offers ‘top notch capabilities’, as in the possibility to add vitamins, flavors and enzymes for lactose- reduced products using state of art dosing systems.

In summary, BLOOM. offers broad range of product capabilities within the dairy, plant based, malt based, juicy milks, protein enriched, particle inclusion, coffee, tea and naturally fermented yogurt drinks.