# Vietnam Q2 Launch — Research Brief

**From:** Priya Mendel, CEO, Acme Foods
**To:** Strategy team
**Date:** 12 Feb 2026

## Context

Acme Foods is a six-year-old plant-based ready-meals brand currently selling in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. We do about USD 18M annual revenue, mostly through modern-trade grocery (60%) and food-delivery platforms (40%). We're profitable. Vietnam keeps coming up in board meetings — Hanoi and HCMC specifically — and I want to stop hand-waving about it.

We're considering a Q2 launch. Before we commit, I want three parallel deep-dives, each on one page, then a one-paragraph synthesis at the end pulling the threads together.

## The three sub-questions

1. **Competitive landscape.** Who's already in plant-based / ready-meals in Vietnam? Estimated market share, pricing tiers, distribution channels (modern-trade vs. wet-market vs. delivery), brand positioning. Local players and international entrants. Where's the gap we could fit into?

2. **Regulatory and operational.** What licences would we need to import and sell packaged food in Vietnam? Food-safety certification timeline. Labelling rules (Vietnamese-language requirements, ingredient declarations). Payment infrastructure — what payment methods do D2C food brands actually accept locally, and what's the integration story? Any FX or repatriation gotchas.

3. **Talent and ops cost.** Could we hire a small founding team (country manager, marketing lead, ops lead, two account managers) in Vietnam? What's the realistic loaded cost per role per year? Is there a strong talent pool from the existing F&B multinationals? Office vs. remote vs. shared workspace — what's normal for early-stage FMCG teams there?

## Deliverable

One page per sub-question. One paragraph of synthesis at the end. Be specific — name companies, cite numbers, link sources. If a number is your best guess, say so; don't fudge it.