Frozen Fruit and Vegetables from Vietnam: A Buyer Guide

A frozen fruit vegetables Vietnam supplier conversation starts with one question: what do you actually have, right now, at the volume I need, to the port I ship to. The answer moves. Growers rotate through the season, and the slot the processor can confirm this week is not the slot next week. The core page for the line sits at Vietnam frozen fruit and vegetables supplier; this post walks through the parts that matter most to a first-order buyer.

What is in season and what is not

Items that commonly show up on an export quote include mango, pineapple, passion fruit, dragon fruit, jackfruit and durian on the fruit side, and okra, taro, water spinach and sweet corn on the vegetable side. The list is not fixed. Our team has moved mango, pineapple and passion fruit to Taiwan and Australia; other items run against the current grower network and the time of year. If a buyer insists on a specific item at a specific month, the quote states what the slot can hold, or says the slot is tight and offers the next window.

We do not publish a static catalogue because the catalogue would be wrong three weeks later. If you want jackfruit in January and jackfruit is not landing, we would rather say so now than send a quote the production floor cannot deliver.

IQF cuts and inner packs

Cut format follows the end use. Fruit can be whole piece, half, chunk, slice or small dice. Pulp items such as passion fruit or jackfruit arrive as blocks, as bulk polybags or as portioned pouches. Vegetable items run as whole piece, sliced rounds, diced cubes or a ready blanched cut. The IQF line separates individual pieces so the retail bag pours cleanly rather than clumping into a frozen brick.

Inner packs run from retail-ready printed pouches of 300 g, 500 g or 1 kg, to food-service polybags of 2 kg or 5 kg inside a plain master carton. The master carton size follows the pallet height the destination warehouse accepts. For buyers pulling finished seafood on the same quote, our Vietnam fish cake supplier and Vietnam surimi exporter pages cover how those lines handle inner packs.

Spec sheet in short

The specification locks the fields that save a claim later. Cut format and piece size follow your spec. Solids, moisture or Brix range for pulp items is agreed per lot. The additive list for items usually sold with sugar, syrup or an acid regulator follows what your market allows. Microbiology and pesticide-residue limits are agreed per market, and the lab result on the actual lot travels with the shipping documents.

Labels follow destination rules: common name, scientific name where required, origin, net and gross weight, batch and best-before date, allergen declarations where applicable, and the barcode scanned by hand before the first master carton is sealed. The processor runs a printed proof against your artwork. On anything that touches a label claim or a food-additive declaration, check with your customs broker before the order is placed.

Cold chain and loading

The cold chain for frozen fruit and vegetables runs on the same rules as our seafood line. Blast freezing at the processor, cold storage held between -18°C and -22°C, reefer with the set point at -18°C, pre-cooled container before stuffing, core-temperature check on the first and last cartons, loading photos and the container seal number with the shipping documents. If the container deviates in transit, the data logger shows it and the importer has a basis for a claim. For a reefer check-list that applies to any frozen cargo in our line, see -18°C cold chain: what to check in a reefer.

Container rules: fish and durian

Two rules shape how a mixed purchase order becomes a shipment plan, and we do not bend them. The first rule is that fish is not loaded with fruit in the same reefer. The inner-pack rules do not match well, and the smell transfer is not worth a claim. If a buyer wants seafood and fruit on the same quote, we route them as separate containers on separate bills of lading. Our pangasius line is at Pangasius exporter Vietnam; it shares freely with fish cake and surimi on the fish side.

The second rule is that durian ships in its own container. The reasoning is in why durian ships in its own container. The smell carries through inner packs and into the reefer air, which taints every other cargo in the same box. A purchase order that includes durian becomes a multi-container quote.

Documents, labels and arrival

Export documents typically include a commercial invoice, a packing list, a bill of lading, a phytosanitary certificate from the Vietnamese plant protection authority, a certificate of origin, and the laboratory analysis report for the lot. The reefer data logger ships with the container. On arrival, the port needs the phytosanitary certificate, the invoice and the packing list first. The customs broker files the entry. Country-specific permits, duty rates and documentary wording vary; check with your broker in the destination country before the order is placed, not after.

Samples, lead time and the first order

A standard sample under two kilograms is free, with the buyer paying the courier. The first sample is drawn from the processor's current stock so you can judge taste, texture and thaw behaviour. If that passes, a trial run on your cut and your inner pack follows, and the pre-production sample comes from the actual run that will fill the container. Larger evaluation lots are quoted separately because the line stops to run them.

Lead time depends on the item, the season and the slot. Mango at peak season moves faster than mango at the shoulder. Passion fruit windows are shorter than pineapple windows. We write the lead time into the quote and call out any items where the current slot is tight. For a comparison with how our seafood lines pack a first container, our how to import frozen fish cake from Vietnam post walks through the three sample rounds we use.

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