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MDI is a young and small 20 staff company specialized in equitable trade of agricultural products, including coffee, green tea, jasmine tea, snow mountain tea and cashews grown in eight provinces across Vietnam under the trademark Betterday Fairtrade. Production and primary processing of products are undertaken in conjunction with farmer groups in rural areas. MDI works in partnership with groups of smallholder farmers, mostly from ethnic minority groups in poorer and remote areas of Vietnam.

The company is committed to the development of the rural sector in Vietnam and believes that the best way to accomplish sustainable development is by doing business in a fair and ethical way with people in the sector: by engaging producers as trading partners, MDI can improve their livelihoods, increase their incomes and assist them in linking with markets on terms that are beneficial for them.

MDI works with farmer groups to help improve quality of production and achieve Fairtrade and organic certification. By improving quality and achieving certification, the value of the product can be increased significantly. In addition, MDI processes and produces branded and certified consumer ready products for domestic sale and for export. With their motto “Development through pro‐poor business”, MDI has a “double bottom line”, meaning that in addition to being a “for‐profit”, their success is also measured by the social impact that they can achieve. The MDI network currently counts around 1,000 representing in total household size about 5,000 people. Along with its trading activities, MDI is also providing the producers with technical agricultural assistance on Good Agriculture Practice. MDI is also the world’s first company from a developing country licensed to develop and sell Fairtrade labeled products for domestic market and export. The business has now reached the break-even point and the company is in the process of capitalizing on its assets while focusing on efficient growth and expansion.