Teacher successfully changed career with Central Highlands agricultural products

Go through failures

Dak Nong is located in the center of the Central Highlands, 40 ethnic groups living here have created a multicultural land, favored by nature, with a temperate climate, also the land that produces many typical agricultural products of the mountains and forests such as coffee, pepper, cashew, macadamia, durian, avocado, honey...

Ms. Tran Thi Diu, Director of An Phat Trading and Service Company Limited, is in the TOP 100 outstanding young entrepreneurs nationwide in 2023.

As a teacher, 10 years ago, Ms. Diu followed her husband to live in Dak Nong. In addition to her job as a teacher with a meager salary, she found an additional source of income from retailing local agricultural products. Realizing that this land had a lot of macadamia nuts and a special, delicious flavor, she tried to buy dried macadamia nuts to sell.

"The first time, I invested in buying 5kg of macadamia nuts to sell, but I could only sell one 500gr package for the whole month. The goods were kept in the house for a long time, looking at them made me anxious and sad, so I had to give away the rest," Ms. Diu recalled.

3-star OCOP products such as macadamia, nutritional nut bars, and seaweed with nuts are not only the pride of Ms. Diu and the local people, but she also wants to bring the taste of the highlands to domestic and foreign consumers.

After her failed "start-up", Ms. Diu was so worried that she lost weight. Her husband comforted, encouraged her and bought more ingredients for her to experiment. With the support of her family, she was not discouraged and continued to persevere, but not in a hurry.

"I have researched to "understand" the macadamia tree better. This is a type of tree that is not easy to grow. You have to take care of it and love it so that it can live and sprout. From there, you can create your own products. However, things do not always go smoothly. I remember there was a time when, despite having researched very carefully, when I started the first batches of dried macadamia, I failed repeatedly. There were batches that failed and cost me 10 or 30 million VND, and there were batches that were completely lost. Meanwhile, the money to invest in building a factory and buying machinery and equipment was all borrowed. After many sleepless nights, I was worried about the money running out and wondered why others could do it but I couldn't. Finally, after many failures, I found the perfect drying process for my product, with its own unique flavor" - Ms. Diu shared her startup process.

After the failure, she continued to experiment and finally achieved a feasible drying batch. However, when drying, the product was not even. Therefore, it took her a while to find the right formula. She dried many batches at once, each batch giving her more experience to perfect the product.

Products of Ms. Diu's An Phat Trading and Service Company Limited are available in domestic and foreign markets.

For the next two years, Ms. Diu's dried macadamia products were a great success. The products produced were not enough to sell, and were often "out of stock".

She also quickly realized that the local macadamia raw material area was abundant and of good quality, so she decided to establish her own macadamia production facility. This was also her bold decision, aiming to expand the scale of her business. But further, it was her aspiration to bring a legitimate source of income to macadamia farmers in her second homeland.

Not stopping at processing finished macadamia nuts, Ms. Diu has researched and combined macadamia flavor with brown rice, durian, and cereal grains to create new products such as: Nutritional cereal bars, durian cereal bars...

"At first, I only packaged the products simply, but it was difficult for customers to recognize my products. Therefore, I continued to invest in design, packaging design, barcodes, traceability stamps, product inspection, and actively participated in competitions to bring macadamia products to the market. Currently, each month, the company is supplying the market with 7-9 tons of products," said Ms. Diu.

Ms. Diu's company has 2 products that have achieved the provincial 3-star OCOP certification, including nutritional nut bars and dried macadamia nuts. To bring the products closer to more customers and expand the market, Ms. Diu has boldly implemented digital transformation solutions in production and consumption connection. Digital transformation also helps her manage and operate the company's production activities conveniently and promptly.

Women's Union is a strong "rear"

To achieve today's success, in addition to her own efforts, Ms. Diu was also fortunate to receive attention, support, capital, machinery, etc. from departments, branches, associations, and unions. Especially the support of the Dak Nong Provincial Women's Union. Until now, she still remembers the happiness when she brought her product to the "Startup Ideas" contest and won second prize in the "Women with Startup Ideas 2019 Contest" organized by the Provincial Women's Union. That was the first award in her business career. Thanks to that, her Vida Boom brand became popular and loved.

Not only a manufacturing company, Ms. Diu's company is also a bridge between farmers and the market.

In 2023, Ms. Tran Thi Diu achieved many successes: The product continued to win First Prize in the "National Rural Youth Startup Project" contest organized by the Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, with the project "Freeze-dried durian and cereal".

She is also one of 43 outstanding young farmers to be honored and receive the Luong Dinh Cua Award, and is also on the list of 100 outstanding young entrepreneurs nationwide voted by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association in the same year.

"The award has given me great motivation to try harder and be more confident on my entrepreneurial path. Thanks to the award, I have been supported by the Provincial Women's Union and connected with the Youth Union, agencies and departments to get more support in promoting my products. From there, I have also been able to connect and meet many businesses to learn and exchange production and business experiences, and have many opportunities to access support programs from my home province" - Ms. Diu shared.

Ms. Diu also said that over the past years, the Women's Union at all levels of Dak Nong province has been making efforts to support members in economic development, improving their living standards, and attracting potential for the locality. Therefore, the models and activities to support women in sustainable poverty reduction and business start-up of the Women's Union at all levels of Dak Nong province have had many positive changes and are increasingly spreading widely.

Macadamia nuts are considered the "queen of dried fruits", an agricultural product expected to bring high economic efficiency with the name "billion dollar tree".

To contribute to supporting and enhancing women's economic power, the Women's Union at all levels in the district focuses on building and replicating good economic development models led by women. Women with economic conditions and knowledge are supported to start a business, with forms such as support for machinery, production equipment, and consulting on brand building to be able to increase product value and expand market scale.

Lessons learned from Ms. Tran Thi Diu's startup process:

Persistent and creative;

Constant innovation is the factor that helps her business grow and gain a foothold in the market.

"In order for members like us to promote our role and position in society, the Association at all levels has helped members enhance their economic power. Through programs such as vocational training, support for start-ups, business start-ups, loans, etc., many members and women, especially women from ethnic minority areas, not only have the conditions to rise up to sustainably reduce poverty but also affirm the position of women in the new era," said Ms. Diu.

Macadamia is a "money-making" tree, Ms. Nguyen Thi Diu hopes that through her success, she can inspire many women in Dak Nong to boldly start their own businesses. At the same time, together, they can increase the value of local agricultural products, contributing to solving employment for workers and developing the local economy.