In 2025–2026, the Vietnamese coffee market continues to evolve toward convenience and product diversification, with ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee showing positive momentum. Euromonitor notes that RTD coffee innovation is centering on flavor profiles, functional benefits, and sustainable packaging, while modern trade and e-commerce channels continue to expand. This dynamic compels manufacturers to accelerate new product development while maintaining consistent quality, strict process control, and manufacturing agility—driving a heightened need for operational modernization.
Coffee Products in the Vietnamese Market
Factory Challenges
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Aroma is the Most Vulnerable Asset in Processing: A coffee brand’s entire sensory signature relies on the aroma captured post-extraction and preserved through concentration, chilling, and drying. This consecutive thermal process involves tightly coupled variables across temperature, pressure, and flow rates. Even a brief threshold deviation can compromise a batch’s inherent characteristics, leaving no room for correction in downstream stages.
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Raw Green Coffee Variability Across Batches and Harvests: Green coffee bean quality fluctuates across origins and crop seasons, requiring intake, batch dosing, and blending stages to be strictly controlled to maintain end-product consistency. When these operations rely on manual handling, plants struggle to ensure batch uniformity and lack the digital traceability required when quality deviations arise.
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Aroma-Preserving Stages Demand the Highest Energy Consumption: Evaporation, chilling, and deep-freezing systems run continuously, accounting for the lion’s share of an instant coffee plant’s utility bill. Lacking centralized monitoring and waste-heat recovery, energy costs per ton of finished product rise alongside electricity tariffs without empirical data to drive optimization.
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Legacy Control Systems and Fieldbuses Hinder Expansion: Many facilities still rely on decades-old fieldbus networks and legacy SCADA systems where a single controller governs multiple distinct process skids. This monolithic architecture introduces substantial downtime risks when relocating equipment or scaling lines, while restricting corporate-level reporting and enterprise connectivity.
Tan Tien’s Solutions
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Green Coffee Intake and Batch Dosing Systems: Turnkey hardware and batch control software architectures for raw material receiving and front-end handling.
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Applications: Automated batch control for green coffee intake and processing; decoupling existing control systems into two independent controllers for separate process zones; structuring control architecture for future line expansion and equipment relocation; upgrading industrial networks from ControlNet to EtherNet/IP.
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Extraction, Aroma Recovery, and Refrigeration Systems: Comprehensive engineering design, equipment procurement, materials supply, and control panel integration for core coffee processing units.
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Applications: Aroma recovery units and extract storage tanks; agglomeration skids; pre-chilling systems; blast freezing and industrial refrigeration; comprehensive system engineering and hardware configuration; detailed P&ID, electrical, and control loop schematics; FAT (Factory Acceptance Testing) and SAT (Site Acceptance Testing).
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Evaporation, Chilling, and Heat Recovery Systems: Turnkey engineering, installation, and programming for high-energy processes to maximize plant thermal and electrical efficiency.
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Applications: Industrial cooling and chiller plants; multi-stage evaporation systems; waste-heat recovery loops; electrical/control panel fabrication and supply; PLC/SCADA programming and on-site commissioning; technical training and technology transfer for plant operations and maintenance teams.
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Automated Barista Process Control: Engineering design and control system programming for in-plant Barista extraction skids, including full commissioning and operational handover.
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SCADA Platform & Legacy Control Modernization: Non-disruptive modernization and supervisory system upgrades for operational instant coffee lines, keeping production downtime to a minimum.
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Scope: Control hardware and SCADA upgrades for continuous instant coffee lines; supply of automation hardware integrated directly into existing control enclosures and remote I/O panels; audit of existing process dynamics versus optimized sequences; complete engineering documentation, electrical schematics, PLC logic, and SCADA runtime software; on-site panel modification and retrofitting; commissioning, start-up, operator training, and handover.
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Electrical Infrastructure and Facility Safety: Turnkey safety and power quality systems engineered for non-stop facility operation.
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Scope: Facility-wide Faraday cage direct lightning protection systems; low-impedance grounding networks; full material supply, engineering, installation, and operational handover.
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Lifecycle Maintenance and Field Support: Dedicated engineering support to maintain maximum system availability post-commissioning.
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Services: Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) and PLC repair services; 24/7 remote technical hotline; rapid on-site emergency troubleshooting and field maintenance; scheduled preventive maintenance agreements; on-site technical training programs for plant engineering teams.
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Key Implementation Benefits
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Preserves signature flavor and aroma profiles through synchronized control across extraction, evaporation, and chilling.
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Eliminates batch variability via automated intake and recipe-driven dosing, safeguarding finished product uniformity.
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Reduces unit energy costs per ton of finished product through targeted optimization of evaporation, refrigeration, and thermal recovery loops.
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Enables modular equipment relocation and future line additions via decoupled, zone-based control architectures.
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Unlocks centralized visibility, secure remote diagnostics, and enterprise MES/ERP connectivity via modern EtherNet/IP backbones and SCADA platforms.
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Extends the lifecycle of legacy automation assets through structured, modular retrofit strategies.
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Safeguards critical production assets against direct lightning strikes and electrical surges, mitigating unscheduled plant downtime.
In the coffee sector, Tan Tien partners with Nestlé—the world’s largest food and beverage corporation and the owner of Nescafé, the leading global instant coffee brand—across its Tri An, Binh An, and Dong Nai facilities, as well as Vinacafé Bien Hoa (Vietnam’s first instant coffee plant with over 50 years of heritage) and the Long Thanh plant. Recognizing that aroma is a brand’s core value yet highly vulnerable to temperature and pressure fluctuations—and that these processes are inherently energy-intensive—Tan Tien delivers turnkey solutions spanning engineering design, control panel integration, and automation modernization to stabilize sensory quality, optimize energy efficiency, and build a robust data backbone for modern smart manufacturing.
