24/04/2026
U&I Logistics - Exporting durian to China is becoming a "marathon race" in which any misstep in supply chain management can cause businesses to suffer heavy losses. What is particularly concerning is the excessive dependence on the Chinese market, which has increasingly stringent quarantine requirements. Let's join U&I Logistics in exploring the solutions that are rewriting the "rules of the game" in durian exports!
The successive signing of two Protocols on phytosanitary requirements — for fresh durian on July 11, 2022, and for frozen durian on August 19, 2024 — has turned China into a market that almost absolutely dominates the output of this industry. In 2024, durian achieved an export turnover of more than USD 3.3 billion with an output of approximately 1.5 million tons, accounting for nearly 50% of the country's total fruit and vegetable export value; the Chinese market alone contributed USD 3.2 billion, equivalent to 91% of the industry's turnover.
As of May 2025, the total number of growing area codes and packing facility codes granted by GACC for Vietnamese durian exceeded 1,800, but this figure conceals a harsh reality. Since June 2024, GACC has suspended 15 packing facilities and 18 growing areas due to the detection of cadmium residues exceeding permitted thresholds. In October 2025, when several testing laboratories for cadmium and Auramine O temporarily halted operations for maintenance, nearly 2,000 containers of durian were stranded at factory warehouses, in transit, and at border gate areas. In a market with such a large share, any suspension order from GACC creates an immediate shock to the flow of goods, causing localized congestion at northern border gates and increasing warehousing costs, directly affecting shippers' profit margins.
The excessive degree of market dependence is putting the durian industry in a state of "running while still lining up." Without a transition from a "raw export" mindset to "integrated value chain governance," maintaining GACC codes will become a war of attrition over compliance costs for Vietnamese logistics enterprises.
The first critical bottleneck lies in the lack of synchronization in end-to-end operations. For durian, temperature control is the management of a complex biochemical process: frozen durian (Durio zibethinus) — including whole durian fruit (with rind), durian puree (without rind), and durian flesh (without rind), originating from fresh, ripe durian fruit grown in Vietnam — is frozen at -35°C or lower for at least 1 hour until the core temperature reaches -18°C or lower, and is maintained at a core temperature of -18°C or below throughout the storage and transportation process in accordance with the requirements of CAC/RCP 8-1976.
In practice, the journey from Dak Lak or Tien Giang to Lang Son passes through multiple transshipment legs, tractor swaps, waiting for drivers, and waiting for procedures; at staging yards near border gates, many drivers must keep generators running 24/7 on reefer containers to prevent cargo damage. Each power interruption forces the cooling system to recover heat, and for a fruit with a physiological ripening cycle of only 5–7 days, just a few hours of temperature deviation are enough to cause stem fermentation, spike discoloration, and loss of flesh firmness — sensory defects that become a pretext for Chinese traders to push down prices or refuse delivery when containers are opened at Pingxiang or Po Chai.
The second bottleneck lies in documentation synchronization. A discrepancy between the growing area code declared on the phytosanitary certificate and the actual code printed on the packaging, a business that has not yet completed registration under Order 248 but is still named on the invoice, or data declared on the CIFER system that does not match the customs declaration on the Chinese side — each error pushes the shipment into the red customs inspection channel, triggering a chain of cascading damages.
According to GACC warnings, from early 2024 to 2025, a total of 827 shipments of Vietnamese durian, jackfruit, banana, chili, and mango failed to comply with China's food safety regulations. Of these, durian was flagged the most, with 761 shipments (589 contaminated with cadmium and 157 with Auramine O). Technical barriers from GACC are shifting from "supporting adaptation" to "tightening enforcement." For logistics managers, documentation is no longer the final finishing step but must become the pre-control stage. Any data discrepancy leads to mandatory 100% inspection, causing a sudden spike in cycle time and destroying the integrity of the previously established cold chain. However, looking deeper into the issue, another harsh truth is revealed: the very fragmented logistics model used by the vast majority of exporting businesses is creating "gray zones" of responsibility, where no single contractor is willing to bear the cost when an incident occurs, and the shipper always ends up as the party shouldering the loss.
The Solution from an Integrated Model
From the perspective of a service provider, Mr. Tran Huy Tuan, Market Development Section Manager at U&I Logistics, points out a paradox: The vulnerability of shippers does not lie in production capacity but in the "ad-hoc" approach to procuring services. "The core weakness is not a lack of understanding of the process, but the fragmented mindset of buying services — hiring reefer trucks, customs agents, and transshipment brokers from independent sources," Mr. Tuan noted. The consequence of this model is information disconnection, making the shipper the sole entity bearing all financial risk when the supply chain encounters problems. According to the U&I Logistics representative, to protect profit margins against variables at the border gate, businesses need to shift to an integrated logistics model with two main pillars:
Bringing the entire journey from the packing facility to the border transshipment point under a single legal entity with sole responsibility. This eliminates "gray zones" of responsibility and establishes an end-to-end quality commitment.
Temperature data and documentation data must operate in parallel on a centralized management platform.
Putting this principle into practice, this company has standardized an integrated cold chain and customs clearance model for the export corridor from Dak Lak and Tien Giang through the Huu Nghi International Border Gate. Reefer containers are dispatched directly to packing facilities that have been granted codes, pre-set with specialized temperature ranges — 13–15°C with 15–20% ventilation for fresh durian and -18°C core temperature for frozen goods — and equipped with sensors that transmit real-time temperature and humidity data to the operations center. Through a single platform, shippers can not only track the journey's location but also monitor cargo conditions; any adverse variable — from a drop in generator power to deviations from the permitted temperature threshold — triggers automatic alerts, allowing the operations team to intervene en route rather than discovering damage when the container is opened at the border inspection yard.
In the context of GACC tightening control through digital systems, this company has established a pre-clearance control process right at the site: before the container leaves the yard, the operations team cross-checks three layers of data — matching the growing area code on the phytosanitary certificate with the actual label on the packaging; verifying the validity of Order 248 registration of the entity named on the invoice; and synchronizing CIFER data with the customs declarations on both the Vietnamese and Chinese sides. At Huu Nghi, instead of passively waiting, the on-site customs clearance team locks in transshipment schedules with the Chinese carrier before the truck arrives at the yard, minimizing storage time and protecting the integrity of the previously established cold chain.
The key point in U&I Logistics' model is the integration of all links — from the upstream warehouse, transshipment transport, and inspection yard to the border transshipment trucks — into a single service contract. Shippers no longer have to face the situation of subcontractors passing the buck when incidents arise. A single point of responsibility is the key to protecting cargo value at the border gate.
The "Green Lane" Is Setting a New Standard
The integrated cold chain and customs clearance model that pioneering units are deploying is no longer the isolated effort of individual businesses; it has now converged with a larger policy impetus from the state. Decision No. 5272/QD-BNNMT, signed by the Minister of Agriculture and Environment on December 13, 2025, has officially formalized the Green Lane process for durian — a closed-loop management model from soil testing in the orchard, cultivation, harvesting, attaching traceability tags to trees and stickers to fruits at harvest, to phytosanitary inspection and the issuance of certificates of origin right at the locality where the orchard is located. Instead of concentrating all verification pressure at the border gate, the Green Lane pushes the control stage to the front end of the chain and issues a digitized data set accompanying the shipment. The first durian shipment to apply this process cleared customs at the Huu Nghi Border Gate on April 10, 2026, shortening the entire route from harvest to truck crossing the border to about 6 days, compared with 8–11 days under the traditional method.
The alignment in operational logic between the Green Lane and the model of integrated logistics providers is no coincidence. Both converge on a core point: the transparency and seamlessness of supply chain data. More broadly, shortening the export route by 2 to 5 days is opening up new room for price negotiation for the entire official-channel fruit and vegetable industry exporting to China.
The story of the durian industry is not merely an isolated phenomenon, but a signal foreshadowing a structural shift across the entire fruit and vegetable industry exporting through official channels to the Chinese market. As the "Green Lane" is expanded to other agricultural products, the entities that master the flow of information and commit to end-to-end responsibility will not only protect their profits but also establish a new standard for Vietnamese agricultural exports in the seasons to come.
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