Trustchem: Embracing the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Innovation to Grow With Customers

The TRUSTCHEM Group (Trustchem), established over two decades ago, is a new designated and high-tech pesticide manufacturer in China that specializes in the research and development (R&D) and production of crop protection products.

“Around the world, we have nine affiliated companies and over 150 pesticide registrations, and our products are sold to more than 50 countries and regions. Our rapid development, literally, is made possible by the philosophy that we espouse, which is a steadfast commitment to our customers. This commitment remains unchanged, whether at the time when we first engaged in trading or when we established our own production factory later,” said DI Huiping, General Manager of Trustchem in an interview with AgroPages.

Please briefly introduce Trustchem. What is the company’s brand positioning?

Trustchem, established in 1996, is a designated new and high-tech pesticide manufacturer in China that specializes in the R&D and production of crop protection products. With more than 50 registration certificates granted by the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture in China (ICAMA), the company has seen its pesticide exports ranked among the top 20 in China for ten consecutive years.

Embracing a philosophy of environmental friendliness, sustainability and customercentricity, Trustchem consistently provides technical innovation and customized production services throughout the whole life cycle of target products, constantly delivering exceptional solutions to global crop protection markets.

What is the quality philosophy and value proposition of the company?

Trustchem started as a trader. It was not until 2005 when the company built its own production base. Trustchem has stayed committed to its customers, and not a single batch of our products has ever gone untested, and there is not a single block of cargo for which we are not responsible throughout its life cycle. The company has an independent and perfect testing and analysis team to provide customers with both quality and quantity sales services. As such, what our customers trust is not merely our products, but also our brand.

What is your direction and strategy for product R&D?

Our product development is based on the real demand of our core markets. Instead of pursuing traditional large-scale projects and mass products, we concentrated our attention on niche products, avoiding headlong capacity expansion. From technical products to formulations and customers, we aim to get as close as possible to the market and the real demand of our customers as much as we can.

For instance, instead than producing the complete set of imidazolinone herbicides, including imazapyr, imazethapyr, imazamethabenz-methyl, and imazaquin, we only focus on imazamox. We closely follow market demand, control the supply of technical products, leverage our professional capabilities in developing formulations, and respond swiftly, providing our clients with customized WG/SL formulations. If we have an output of 200 tonnes, we will release that amount to our customers, and that is all. Trustchem does not aim to become an industry leader, it aims to accomplish its established goals step-by-step, inch-by-inch.

While currently meeting its export needs, Trustchem is also offering domestic and overseas customers and distributors formulations and OEM services and products that comply with the standards of the Chinese National Standard (GB), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), among others.

Please introduce the marketing techniques of Trustchem in its core markets, particularly in Eastern Europe, and what experience the company can share.

Having been marketed in overseas markets over the past two decades, the products of Trustchem have established an admirable reputation and credibility across Japan, the US, the EU, Russia, Australia, South America, Southeast Asia, and other markets. For example, due to its unremitting efforts over these years, Trustchem has ranked first in terms of formulation exports to Russia. 

Although Trustchem, on the whole, is developing well, in our actual business operations, setbacks and frustrations are commonplace. But commendably, no matter what happens, our teams always keep faith and encourage one another, emerging stronger from these challenges one after another.

Eastern European countries, for instance, suffer from an economic crisis every two or three years, when their currencies depreciate in value and their food becomes unmarketable. In reaction to this, we actively communicate with our customers and support them, based on the principle that we aspire to maintain longstanding partnerships with them over the next 10 and even 20 years. Our support includes not only products but also a wide range of services. Trustchem will not easily abandon its customers, and over the past 20 years, it has retained more than 80% of them.

Our customers are all distributors. In the past 10 years, we required our sales team to regularly visit our customers to learn about their local planting situations, so we can develop a few products with our formulations within two to three years, understand better alternatives from farmers and distributors, and make good formulations for product registration as early as possible. Therefore, from the perspective of our overall sales, 70% of the products on sale are formulation products and come from our efforts.

In the past 20 years, we have supported and developed a number of small and medium-sized local distributors in various regions of the world with a common development philosophy. In addition to partnerships, our longstanding distributors across different regions are, to some extent, emotionally bonded to us. We help them improve their production technology, design and provide production equipment, and control prices. One thing we are most proud of is that we can empower our partners and cultivate them into leading local companies.

What efforts will Trustchem make when it comes to its portfolio of core products, marketing in critical markets, stable production supply, and so on?

Currently, Trustchem has two R&D centers and one quality control center, as well as three plants in China. Its series of water-based formulations, which includes a suspending agent, suspended seed coating, soluble granule, water dispersible granule, dry flowable, water aqua, emulsion in water, and microemulsion, have a total capacity in excess of 50,000 tonnes.

In particular, the company has prioritized the development of the high-end formulations, FS and DF, which are highly competitive in the markets. For example, our emamectin benzoate series of DF and imidacloprid 600g/ L FS, developed for the South American market, enjoy an extraordinary reputation among our local customers. By the way, with respect to emamectin benzoate, we have also developed emamectin benzoate + lufenuron WG, which are very popular. In our core markets, such as Eastern Europe, we have also reserved some products for wheat, and in South America, some products for soybean.

What is the development goal of Trustchem?

Over the next decade, the development goal of Trustchem is to launch more niche technical products with core technical capabilities, as well as research and develop new formulations. To this end, we will remain committed to our strategy of close collaboration with our overseas distributors to foster customers and grow with them, therefore, achieving our vision of serving global agriculture.

This article was initially published in AgroPages '2020 Market Insight' magazine. Download it to read more articles.