Vietnam

Cacao reached Vietnam under French Indochina but remained marginal until a deliberate expansion from the early 2000s, when development programmes and trading companies promoted it as a smallholder cash crop. Planted area peaked in 2012 at roughly 25,000 hectares and then contracted sharply as farmers shifted to more profitable crops such as pepper, coffee and fruit; the sector today is small but quality-focused.

Production is concentrated in the south: the Mekong Delta provinces, notably Bến Tre and Tiền Giang, where cacao is interplanted with coconut; the southeastern provinces such as Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu; and the Central Highlands, particularly Đắk Lắk and Lâm Đồng, where it grows alongside coffee and cashew on basalt soils. Plantings are overwhelmingly introduced Trinitario-type hybrid clones, an admixture in the modern genetic-cluster framing of Motamayor et al. (2008).

Vietnamese beans are valued for soft caramel, honey and yellow-fruit notes and have supported a noted domestic bean-to-bar industry. Although total volume is modest, Vietnam has become a recognised single-origin name in fine chocolate, and selected lots have been cited for fine-flavour quality.