Nutricare founder and CEO Nguyen Duc Minh shared that 13 years ago he found the niche in medical nutrition to start his business. Devoting his whole youth to research on nutrition for Vietnamese children and travelling to the country’s remote areas as a member of the National Institute of Nutrition, Minh realised that he could intervene in nutrition by creating a product that is well received by the market. Nutricare was born in 2010 from such a dream to improve nutrition for Vietnamese people.

Starting as a nutritionist who graduated with a master’s degree from the University of Washington and served as Deputy Director of the Institute of Social and Medical Studies (ISMS), CEO Nguyen Duc Minh said, in order to change consumers’ awareness about the importance of nutrition, especially medical nutrition products, is not easy.

During the past 13 years, with the goal of providing nutritional solutions for Vietnamese people, from pregnant women, children and adults to the elderly, Nutricare has identified the medical nutrition segment with nutritional products that support patients as the key to making a difference and pioneering on their own path.

At that time, people only understood that normal nutrition was a pre-processed product containing enough nutrients, vitamins, minerals and functional ingredients to support life, and anyone could use it. Meanwhile, medical nutrition is more complex, individualised, built for specific subjects and serves people with medical conditions (or needs).

Vietnam is facing a “double burden” of nutrition. That is malnutrition in groups of people with limited access due to awareness and socio-economic conditions. Second, overnutrition in the wealthy group due to rapid lifestyle changes leads to metabolic disorders because the body cannot adapt.

Sometimes, consumers are influenced by informal, fragmentary and non-standard information. Economic conditions are also a barrier for people to care about nutritional products.

With the rapid development and growth of the economy, Vietnamese people have many opportunities to access food but are not prepared for that change, meaning their nutritional knowledge is “old”. “Not many people understand what energy is needed for physical condition and how much is enough according to age,” Minh said. In Vietnam, medical nutrition training is still new, so personnel and training programmes can only partially meet the needs.

In 2008, a project to support poor people's health care sponsored by the European Community asked Dr. Nguyen Duc Minh for advice on a nutritional formula to restore malnourished children in Vietnam. After serving the project, CEO Nguyen Duc Minh realised that the external demand was much greater than the statistics. Many families recognise stunting and malnutrition and are willing to spend money to buy nutritional products. That's why in October 2010, Minh decided to gather a group of friends to present the prospects of a line of formula milk specifically for malnourished children in Vietnam.

“The niche market we chose has a lot of potential. In addition to our efforts to find new knowledge and develop a team of experts from the US, we have been able to change our way of thinking from the domestic market towards internationalisation with the needs of nutritional care”, Minh shared.

Although it is a young field, Nutricare believes that medical nutrition in Vietnam is an inevitable need and will develop strongly in the future. Therefore, Nutricare constantly explores and researches to develop diverse lines of specialised medical nutritional products according to age and disease at prices suitable for the majority of Vietnamese consumers and continuously carries out communication activities to influence users' awareness of medical nutrition.

After 13 years of operation, Nutricare has continuously maintained double-digit growth, even during the COVID-19 epidemic. This has proven the role of businesses in influencing users' awareness of medical nutrition.

After five years, although the Care 100 product business was still very successful, Nutricare began to move into "niche" products. Researchers at Nutricare search for formulas for many different groups of people who need nutritional supplements: kidney patients, liver patients, cancer patients, or even a "market" that is not at all large, like thyroid patients.

If the milk lines for malnourished children are sold by Nutricare members from the perspective of parents, then these new product lines are also based on the perspective of family members. For example, the Leanpro Thyro product line - iodine-rich nutrition for thyroid patients - was born after a member of Nutricare learned that his family member had thyroid cancer. Nutricare finds a need for attention in every corner.

In particular, Nutricare's medical nutritional products have been recognised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade as Vietnam’s National Brand products for three consecutive years since 2018. They include Glucare Gold diabetic care product, Leanmax Hope for people with cancer, Metacare nutritional product line to support children's weight gain, height and comprehensive physical development, Hanie Kid provides nutrition for children with anorexia and stunt growth, Care 100 re-nourishing for children and Smarta Grow Nutrition to help children grow taller.

Continuous innovation and diversity of nutritional products for different customer groups have helped Nutricare increase its competitiveness in the market.

Over the past years, Nutricare has also presented its nutritional products to disadvantaged people. The company has implemented a care project for children with cancer at the Vietnam National Hospital of Paediatrics in Hanoi since 2020 and Children's Hospital 2 in Ho Chi Minh City since 2021. It also supported patients treated for kidney failure at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi since 2020.

Many disadvantaged people, such as children in remote areas, people affected by natural disasters, those facing difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, and revolutionary contributors, have also received support from Nutricare.

Targeting the majority of Vietnamese people who can afford nutritional medical products, the company carried out research on more specialised products, identified market segmentation, and optimised costs while still ensuring quality. The goal is to create products suitable for middle-income customer groups.

Nutricare invests in high standard equipment, with some machines in the production chain worth several million US dollars each, equivalent to investment in a factory.

The company has always applied new technological achievements to its products, at the same time purchasing raw materials in different forms and recombining formulas to serve target groups according to their needs in each stage of life: exercise or treatment. Regarding the fresh milk product line, in order to have input materials meeting standards, Nutricare opened a new raw material area in Tam Dao, Vinh Phuc - a place with good soil and cool climate all year round and dairy cows being raised naturally with clean food sources.

Nutricare also cooperates with research facilities abroad and sends its staff abroad to update information. Nutricare signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Nutricare Medical Nutrition Institute - USA (NMNI-USA) in July 2023 with the goal of contributing to the healthcare and health improvement of millions of Vietnamese families.

Most recently, in October 2023, Nutricare and NMNI-USA announced the first achievements of nutrition scientists by launching five new products dedicated for specific subjects such as: children with weak immune system, children with anorexia and stunting, people with diabetes, older people in need of nutritional supplements to improve their health, and people with bone and joint problems.