This brief describes a pilot study for an alternative approach carried out in Northern Viet Nam: promoting pro-poor H5N1 risk reduction by using the demand-side of the poultry market to achieve higher food safety standards. Through this approach, market-oriented smallholders contribute voluntarily to the global commons of disease prevention, improve their livelihoods, and replace costly government intervention in disease surveillance and control. Modeled on organic, fair-trade, and other specialist product marketing strategies, this pilot combined risk management with product quality development, opening the potential for private incentives to improve product quality and incomes for all participants in poultry value chains.