Mitani Sangyo considers deep processing of agricultural products in Dak Lak Province — extracting natural ingredients from coffee husks, pepper, and cashew nuts

General trading company Mitani Sangyo (Kanazawa City), founded about 100 years ago, is considering a deep-processing business for agricultural products in Dak Lak Province in Vietnam's Central Highlands. In May 2026, the company's Special Advisor (former Chairman) Mitsuru Mitani met with Dak Lak People's Committee Chairman Do Huu Huy and Vice Chairman Nguyen Thien Van, presenting a concept to extract high-value-added natural ingredients from coffee husks, pepper, and cashew nut shells.

Mitani Sangyo's investment concept for Dak Lak Province

The business Mitani Sangyo is considering in Dak Lak Province broadly has two axes. The first is a deep-processing business that extracts natural ingredients for functional foods from agricultural byproducts such as coffee husks, pepper, and cashew nut shells. The second is human resource development in the IT, architecture, and construction fields. The fact that Special Advisor Mitsuru Mitani met directly with Dak Lak Province officials suggests the group as a whole is serious about this.

Dak Lak Province has responded positively to the proposal, calling it "an effective approach to converting agricultural byproducts into renewable resources and promoting a circular economy." It has proposed cooperation, including technology transfer, saying it would also help reduce emissions, address environmental issues, and raise local residents' incomes.

Background: 30 years of accumulated business by Mitani Sangyo in Vietnam

Mitani Sangyo began operations in Vietnam in 1994 and has built up its business base over more than 30 years. Its business areas span chemicals, plastic and electronic component manufacturing, IT and software development, construction solutions, and human resources consulting. It has seven subsidiaries and 15 sites in Vietnam, employing about 2,400 people.

Dak Lak Province, meanwhile, is known as Vietnam's largest coffee-producing region. It is also a major producer of cashew nuts and pepper, and the large volumes of byproducts generated from these crops (shells, branches, leaves, etc.) have historically gone largely to waste. Mitani Sangyo's expertise in chemicals and natural ingredient extraction is highly complementary to Dak Lak Province's abundant agricultural byproducts.

Overview of Mitani Sangyo's business in Vietnam

Local Reaction

Dak Lak People's Committee Chairman Do Huu Huy expressed hope for Mitani Sangyo's agricultural processing technology and circular economy approach. He proposed cooperation on technology transfer for advanced processing techniques and on raising the added value of major agricultural products such as coffee, pepper, and cashew nuts on behalf of the province.

Vice Chairman Nguyen Thien Van praised the effort to convert agricultural byproducts into renewable resources as "an approach that achieves both emission reductions and higher incomes for local residents at the same time," and expressed welcome.

Local agricultural industry sources have shown interest in the possibility that coffee husks and other byproducts could gain monetary value. Dak Lak Province accounts for about 30% of Vietnam's total coffee production, and the volume of byproducts it generates is also enormous.

What this means for Japanese companies entering Vietnam

Mitani Sangyo's move offers two implications for the investment trend of Japanese companies in Vietnam. First is a shift from "manufacturing base" to "high-value-added processing base." Conventional entry into Vietnam has mainly been assembly manufacturing that leverages cheap labor, but Mitani Sangyo is considering a technology-intensive business model that extracts high-value-added ingredients from the "waste" of agricultural byproducts.

Second is the emergence of the Central Highlands as a "third option." Japanese companies' entry into Vietnam has concentrated on industrial parks around Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, but investment in provincial areas directly connected to raw material production regions can simultaneously achieve logistics cost reductions and stable raw material sourcing. Kyokuyo's seafood processing plant in Vietnam illustrates how the strategy of placing production bases close to raw material production regions is gaining momentum.

Ripple effects on the industry

The use of agricultural byproducts in Vietnam is emerging as a national agenda. In the coffee industry alone, several million tons of husks and pulp are generated annually, but most has historically been either incinerated or left unused. If foreign capital such as Mitani Sangyo brings in natural ingredient extraction technology, multiple outlets open up, including biomass fuel, functional food ingredients, and cosmetic ingredients.

HOYA's new plant in Vietnam and Kokuyo's acquisition of Thien Long and others, Japanese companies' investment in Vietnam has been active mainly in manufacturing, but there are few precedents of full-scale entry into agricultural processing and the circular economy. If Mitani Sangyo's plan comes to fruition, it could become a benchmark for other companies in the same industry.

Practical Information

Conclusion

Mitani Sangyo's consideration of deep processing of agricultural products in Dak Lak Province points in a different direction from the conventional entry into Vietnam seeking "cheap labor." It is a field the company can step into precisely because it has spent 30 years building a structure of seven subsidiaries and 2,400 employees, and its circular-economy model of turning "waste" such as coffee husks and cashew nut shells into high-value-added raw materials also aligns with provincial-level environmental policy. Specific investment amounts and schedules await future announcements, but the approach of agricultural processing combined with a circular economy could become a new entry model for Japanese companies considering expansion into Vietnam.

Source: The Investor